Lab Report Limiting Reactant

Introduction
The experiment is testing for the formation of precipitates caused by different limiting reactants. A precipitate results in a solid formed by an ionic compound. Calcium nitrate and copper sulfate will be added to separate beakers with approximately half of the solutions from the Büchner funnel system of each trial to test for the formation of precipitates. The limiting reactant is the reactant that will run out first in the chemical reaction. It is important to recognize which chemical or compound is the limiting reactant because the reactant in short supply limits the quantity of the product formed. Stoichiometry will be used to calculate the theoretical yields of each compound to find the limiting reactants or if co-limitation
The theoretical yields of the masses of calcium sulfate and the filter papers in the last three trials were within a 0.8 difference, which was caused by a small water-mass gain. Stoichiometry is an important tool for understanding the effects of varying quantities of reactants in environmental science. In the environment reactions are almost never ideal; one must account for the limiting reactant or the chance of mixtures being impure. Trials three and four resulted in incomplete reactions. The average percent yield of all four trials was 44.5% with the maximum value being 55% and the minimum value being 36% which can be seen in table one. The cause of these low values may have been from loss of gasses that did not get recorded as part of the masses of the calcium sulfate and the filter papers for each run. The data may have been skewed by the process of transporting the solution in the beaker onto the filter, which can be seen in figure one. There was some unaccounted precipitate left in the beaker that we did not force out, which caused the values to be lower. Another possible source of error could have been the weight of the filters. We forgot to weigh the first filter when dry and proceeded to use the average weight
Finding the theoretical yield of each compound made it possible for us identify which compounds were the limiting reactants so we could recognize why the reactions were not complete. Knowing how to carry out experiments like this is essential to understanding environmental events, reactions, and phenomenons. Stoichiometry is a tool that is frequently used in environment science since almost nothing in nature is in its ideal states, which is why it was a useful tool for us in this experiment. The different amounts of sodium sulfate and calcium chloride dictated the experiments theoretical yields and percent yield, which was good because we need to recognize which reactants would be in short