What mass of sodium chloride is produced when 10.0g of sodium is reacted with 20.0g of chlorine?

Answer 1

You always know you have a limiting reagent problem when an amount for BOTH of the reactants are given.
Write the equation and balance it.
2. Convert 10.0 g Na to moles. moles = grams/molar mass
3. Convert 20.0 g Cl2 to moles the same way.
3. Using the coefficients in the balanced equation, convert moles Na to moles NaCl.
4. Same process, convert moles Cl2 to moles NaCl.
5. The answers from 3 and 4 probably will not agree which means one of them is wrong. The correct answer in limiting reagent problems is ALWAYS the smaller one and the reagent producing that value is the limiting reagent.
6. Using the smaller value, convert to grams. g = moles x molar mass.