sztöchiometriában

Stoichiometry is a branch of chemistry that deals with the quantitative relationships between reactants and products in chemical reactions. The term "stoichiometry" comes from the Greek words "stoicheion" meaning element and "metron" meaning measure. It is essentially the calculation of relative quantities of reactants and products in a chemical reaction.

The foundation of stoichiometry lies in the law of conservation of mass, which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed in a chemical reaction. This means that the total mass of the reactants must equal the total mass of the products. Stoichiometric calculations allow chemists to predict the amount of a product that can be formed from a given amount of reactant, or conversely, the amount of reactant needed to produce a specific amount of product.

Key to stoichiometric calculations are balanced chemical equations. A balanced chemical equation represents the reactants and products of a chemical reaction using chemical formulas and stoichiometric coefficients. These coefficients represent the relative number of moles of each substance involved in the reaction. For example, in the reaction 2H₂ + O₂ → 2H₂O, the coefficients indicate that two moles of hydrogen gas react with one mole of oxygen gas to produce two moles of water.

Using these balanced equations, chemists can convert between the amounts of different substances in a reaction. This involves using molar masses to convert between grams and moles, and using the mole ratios from the balanced equation to relate the quantities of reactants and products. Stoichiometry is a fundamental tool in chemistry, essential for laboratory experiments, industrial chemical processes, and understanding chemical phenomena.