Chemists use the following formula to measure their efficiency:

You need 4.04 grams of hydrogen gas. Beyond Perfect Recipes: Limiting and Excess Reactants In a real chemistry lab, you rarely have the exact perfect amounts of both reactants. Usually, you have more of one and less of another. This introduces the concept of the limiting reactant (or limiting reagent).

Look at the coefficients: For every 2 moles of H₂O produced, you need 2 moles of H₂. The ratio of H₂ to H₂O is 2:2, which simplifies to 1:1. Moles of H₂ needed = 2.00 moles H₂O × (2 mol H₂ / 2 mol H₂O) = 2.00 moles H₂.

The other reactants are called excess reactants .