Question

If you feed 100 kg of N2 gas and 100 kg of H2 gas into a reactor. What is the excess reactant?

Answer 1

Answer:

H₂ gas

Explanation:

The reaction between nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas forms ammonia (the Haber-Bosch process):

N₂ + 3H₂ ⇒ 2NH₃

The excess reactant can be found by comparing the moles of nitrogen and hydrogen. The molar mass of N₂ is 28.00 g/mol and the molar mass of H₂ is 2.02 g/mol.

(100 kg N₂)(1000g/kg)(mol/28.00g) = 3570 mol

(100 kg H₂)(1000g/kg)(mol/2.02g) = 49500 mol

The molar ratio between the reactant N₂ and H₂ is 1N₂:3H₂. The moles of nitrogen required to react with H₂ is:

(49500 mol H₂)(1N₂ / 3H₂) = 16500 mol

The amount of nitrogen required is more than what is available, so nitrogen is the limiting reagent and hydrogen is the excess reagent.