How much CO2 will be produced by this reaction?

Question

For the reaction ? C6H6 + ? O2 → ? CO2 + ? H2O 32.3 grams of C6H6 are allowed to react with 85.94 grams of O2. How much CO2 will be produced by this reaction? Answer in units of grams.

ps: i have tried using C6H6 as the limiting reactant however I did not get the correct answer. Perhaps it might be the sig figs that messed me up, but please let me know how you would go about it.

Answer 1

Great job thinking to find the limiting reagent. The first first step is to balance the chemical equation: I get

2C6H6 + 15O2 --> 12 CO2 + 6H2O

Next, find the moles of both reactants (I get 0.41 mol C6H6 and 2.69 mol O2) and divide by their coefficients (2 and 15, respectively). Whichever reactant has the lowest mol after you divide by the coefficient is the limiting reagent. The limiting reagent should be O2 (0.18 vs. 0.21 for C6H6).

Next step is to convert mol of O2 to mol CO2, and then mol CO2 to grams CO2. I get 94.69 g CO2 as the answer.