Limiting reagents

Today we discussed limiting reagents - basically the ingredient that limits how much products you can make. A reagent is a fancy word for reactant.

For a S'more, you need a graham cracks (to break in half), a marshmallow, and two squares of chocolate. If you have 10 marshmallows, then you can only make 10 sandwiches no matter how many graham crackers you have.

In a chemistry problem, you have to take what's given to you and convert to the products (so two sets of conversions) and then determine if what you NEED is what you HAVE. Whichever produces the least amount of product is the limitng reactant. It's really a thought process applied to stoichiometry and unfortunately a necessary evil.