Clarifying Limiting Reactants

[Giovanni Anguiano-Gutierrez 3L]

How do I know which is the limiting reactant? Every time it's explained to me, it sounds different and I never know which is which

[Jessica Tejero 3L]

The way I've learned it is to have the balanced chemical equation for the chemical reaction and convert all given information into moles. Then use stoichiometry for each individual reactant to find the mass of product produced.The reactant that has a lesser amount of product is the limiting reagent.

[Frederick Keith_4C]

A limiting reagent is just a reactant that limits the amount of product formed in a chemical reaction. You can determine what is the limiting reagent by comparing the mole ratio of the reactants used in the reaction.
Here are some steps:
1) Balance the chemical equation given if not already balanced
2) Convert all given information into moles
3) Calculate the mole ratio from the given info. Compare the calculated ratio to the actual ratio.
4) Use the amount of limiting reactant to calculate the product formed' (theoretical yield)