Philip S. answered 04/04/20
Experienced Chemical Engineer, B.Sc in Chemical Engineering
A) First, need to convert the masses to moles. The reason for this is the stoichiometry of the equation is based on moles, not on mass.
To Calculate the molar masses:
Molar mass of C3H8 = (12.012*3) + (1.008*8) = 44.1 grams C3H8/mol
Molar mass of O2 = 16*2 = 32 grams O2/mol
To calculate how many moles of each reactant you have start with the masses given and use unit conversion to solve:
15 g C3H8 x 1mol/44.1 g C3H8 = 0.34 moles C3H8
19.5 g O2 x 1 mol/32 g O2 = 0.59 moles O2
Next take one of the known amount of moles of a reactant and compare using the stoichiometry of the reaction. In this example I use C3H8. Since it takes 5 moles of O2 to react with one mole of C3H8:
0.34 mol C3H8 x 5 mol O2/1 mol C3H8 = 1.7 mol O2
What this is saying is that if I have 0.34 mol of C3H8, then I would need 1.7 mol O2 to completely react the C3H8 I have. Since I have less moles of O2 than this, then my limiting reactant is O2.
B) Mass of excess reagent required for what? I am not sure the question is worded correctly
C) Assuming that I am using the numbers from part A)......here is how it would go:
Figuring out in A) that O2 is my limiting reagent, I need to find out how many moles of water I would produce. This is done my using the stoichiometry (relating one compound in the reaction to the other). We know it takes 5 moles of O2 to make 4 moles of water. Given this:
0.59 mol O2 x 4 mol H2O/5 mol O2 x 18 g H2O/1 mol H2O = 8.496 g H2O
D) Again assuming I am using Part C to answer the question, if you calculated in part C you have 8.496 g H2O, but you only made 4.43 g H2O in actuality, then the %yield is:
%yield = actual yield/theoretical yeild x 100%
%yield = 4.43 gH2O/8.496 g H2O x 100% = 52.1%
Hope this helps!