Percent Yield Calculator

We like to break down complex concepts like percent yield in a way that's easy people to understand. So, instead of saying percent yield measures the effectiveness of a synthetic process, I like to say it tells us how well we did in our lab reaction.

Here's an example to illustrate this concept: imagine you're a chef and you're trying to make a cake. The recipe calls for 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of eggs. If you follow the recipe exactly and use the right amount of ingredients, your cake will turn out perfectly and your percent yield will be 100%. But, if you accidentally spill some of the flour or sugar, your cake won't turn out as well and your percent yield will be less than 100%.

Another example would be if you're trying to extract gold from ore. You might have 100 grams of ore but only manage to extract 50 grams of gold. In that case, your percent yield would be 50%.

And just like the above example, if you accidentally flush your reaction mixture down the drain, you would lose 0% of your reactant. And if you had some solvent, your yield would be more than 100%.

So, to calculate your percent yield, we need two things: the experimental yield, which is the amount of product we actually made, and the theoretical yield, which is the amount of product we should have made based on the amount of reactants we used.

Here's how we calculate it: first, we make sure both yields are in the same units, like grams or milliliters. Then, we divide the theoretical yield by the experimental yield. After that, we multiply that number by 100 to get our percent yield.

It's important to keep in mind that it's possible to get a percent yield higher than 100%. This can happen if there's solvent present in both the sample and the product. To get an accurate percent yield, it's important to dry your product thoroughly before re-weighing it. Additionally, it's impossible to achieve a 100% percent yield because there will always be molecules that react with the glassware or that aren't used in the reaction. Typically, a percent yield of 70% or higher is considered acceptable.