Suppose 2.8 moles of methane are allowed to react with 5 moles of oxygen.

what is the limiting reagent?

Answer : The limiting reagent is

Solution : Given,

Moles of methane = 2.8 moles

Moles of = 5 moles

Now we have to calculate the limiting and excess reagent.

The balanced chemical reaction is,

From the balanced reaction we conclude that

As, 2 mole of react with 1 mole of

So, 5 moles of react with moles of

From this we conclude that, is an excess reagent because the given moles are greater than the required moles and is a limiting reagent and it limits the formation of product.

Hence, the limiting reagent is

explanation:

metals have excess of electrons whereas non-metals have deficiency of electrons. thus, in order to gain stability metals easily donate their electrons to the non-metals.

for example, electronic configuration of sodium is and electronic configuration of phosphorous is .

when a phosphorous atom and sodium atom combine together then sodium will donate is extra one electron to the phosphorous atom. as a result there will be formation of ionic bond between sodium and phosphorous.

the reaction will be as follows.

there, are three sodium sodium atoms and each of them will donate its one extra electron to phosphorous atom. thus, the sub-shell of phosphorous gets completely filled.  

thus, we can conclude that electrons are transferred from atoms of sodium to atoms of phosphorous. this transfer makes the sodium atoms donate one electron and the phosphorous atoms to gain one electron. as a result, the sodium and phosphorus atoms strongly attract each other.