Chemical reactions and stoichiometric calculations

Calculations based on a balanced chemical equation are collectively called stoichiometric calculations, and the balanced chemical equation itself is simply the symbolic representation of a chemical reaction, written so that the number of atoms of every element is the same on both sides. A correctly balanced equation is a genuinely rich source of quantitative information, and it supplies three distinct kinds of it that are used to solve problems: first, it indicates the number of moles of each reactant consumed and the number of moles of each product formed in the reaction; second, it indicates the relative masses of the reactants consumed and products formed, since each formula's mole count converts directly to a mass through its molar mass; and third, for reactions involving gases, it indicates the relationship between the volumes of the gaseous reactants and products, w …