Variable Time Normalization Analysis: General Graphical Elucidation of Reaction Orders from Concentration Profiles

The recent technological evolution of reaction monitoring techniques has not been paralleled by the development of modern kinetic analyses. The analyses currently used disregard part of the data acquired, thus requiring an increased number of experiments to obtain sufficient kinetic information for a given chemical reaction. Herein, we present a simple graphical analysis method that takes advantage of the data-rich results provided by modern reaction monitoring tools. This analysis uses a variable normalization of the time scale to enable the visual comparison of entire concentration reaction profiles. As a result, the order in each component of the reaction, as well as k(obs), is determined with just a few experiments using a simple and quick mathematical data treatment. This analysis facilitates the rapid extraction of relevant kinetic information and will be a valuable tool for the study of reaction mechanisms.