Conditions for reaction mechanisms

Abstract

Several conditions are developed for mechanistically complete reactions and illustrated by examples, including the commercial carbonylation of methyl acetate to acetic anhydride, and a mechanism proposed for the control of nitrogen oxides in engine exhausts. The conditions, which are based on conservation principles and the theory of linear equations, apply to reactions in closed systems, but are otherwise independent of the energy, the kinetics, and the physical states of the components. In addition, a method is given for constructing all possible complete reaction mechanisms consistent with a given set of reaction components