Reaktiomäärä

Reaktiomäärä refers to the amount of a substance that participates in a chemical reaction. It is a fundamental concept in stoichiometry, which is the study of the quantitative relationships between reactants and products in chemical reactions. Reaktiomäärä is typically expressed in moles, a unit that represents a specific number of particles (atoms, molecules, ions, etc.).

Understanding reaktiomäärä is crucial for predicting the yield of a reaction and for determining the limiting reactant, which is the reactant that is completely consumed first and thus limits the amount of product that can be formed. By knowing the reaktiomäärä of each reactant, chemists can calculate the theoretical yield of a product, which is the maximum amount of product that can be obtained if the reaction goes to completion.

The concept of reaktiomäärä is directly related to the law of conservation of mass, which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed in a chemical reaction. In a balanced chemical equation, the number of moles of each element on the reactant side must equal the number of moles of that element on the product side. This ensures that the reaktiomäärä is conserved throughout the reaction.