If you have a truckload of icecream, a bucket of sauce, a box of peanuts but only 1 cherry, you can only make 1 complete sundae. In this case the cherry is the limiting reagent. The limiting reagent is the term given to the ingredient (read: reactant) that has the (stoichiometrically) least amount. The other reactants are said to be in excess. In a reaction the limiting reagent will be totally consumed, and some of the reactant in excess will be leftover. Required:
If you have 20 scoops of ice cream, 14 squirts of chocolate sauce, 5 spoons of peanuts and 7 cherries, how many sundaes can you make and which ingredient is the limiting reagent?

Only 5 sundaes can be made

The limiting reagent is the peanuts.

Explanation:

The complete question is

A perfect ice cream sundae requires exactly:

• 3 scoops of ice cream

• 2 squirts of chocolate sauce

• 1 spoon of peanuts

• 1 cherry

If you have 7 scoops of ice cream, 3 spoons of peanuts, 5 cherries and 11 squirts of sauce, you can only

make 2 complete sundaes. In this case, the icecream is the limiting reagent.

If you have a truckload of icecream, a bucket of sauce, a box of peanuts but only 1 cherry, you can only  make 1 complete sundae. In this case the cherry is the limiting reagent.  The limiting reagent is the term given to the ingredient (read: reactant) that has the (stoichiometrically) least  amount. The other reactants are said to be in excess. In a reaction the limiting reagent will be totally  consumed, and some of the reactant in excess will be leftover.

Critical thinking questions

1. If you have 20 scoops of ice cream, 14 squirts of chocolate sauce, 5 spoons of peanuts and 7 cherries,

how many sundaes can you make and which ingredient is the limiting reagent?

From the ingredients for a a complete sundae given above,

20 scoops of icecream will make 20/3 = 6.66 sundaes

14 squirts of chocolate sauce will make 14/2 = 7 sundaes

5 spoonful of peanuts will make 5/1 = 5 sundaes

7 cherries will make 7/1 = 7 sundaes

From the above, we can work out that only 5 sundaes can be made, and the limiting agent here is peanuts, which has the least amount of sundae that can be made from its available amount.

a chemical reaction

explanation: