Stoichiometry

Chemistry is the bane of many students. It is a foreign language with weird idiosyncrasies and rules. Stoichiometry is one of these quirks.

It is the name given to how chemists calculate things in chemistry. This could be the rate and content of a reaction. It could be what reagents are needed to produce a certain amount of product.

This is where stoichometry comes in. It is a shorthand name for the processes involved in creating the equations needed to understand chemical reactions.

The reason it gets a special name is that stoichiometry is a special sub set of mathematics. It uses its own units (moles) and formulas (chemical equations). This requires the learning of a whole new set of skills that share a lot of over lapping processes as algebra.

The equations take all of the reagents used and than compare the elemental composition of this and the products. If there is the same number of moles on each side than the formula works.

Completing this step will also tell you what reagent or molecule is the limiting step in the process. It could be hydrogen in the case of ATP generation. It could be water for glucose metabolism. Many reactions are limited by something and you will not know unless you complete an equation like this.

An example that has been described in detailed earlier is the efficiency of yeast converting sugar into ethanol. This can only be calculated by stoichiometry.