SOLVING INVERSE PROBLEM OF CHEMICAL KINETICS WITH USE OF CUBIC SPLINES

Abstract

A simple effective method for solving the inverse problem of chemical kinetics based on non-stationary experiments for multistage reactions occurring in an isothermal reactor of ideal mixing is described. The idea of the method is based on taking into account the distinctive features (informativeness) of different fragments of relaxation curves for chemical reactions with arbitrary (non-monotonic) kinetics and their as accurate approximation as possible. For this purpose, non-linear (cubic) splines are used to describe different informative fragments of relaxation curves, which allow to approximate and interpolate experimental data as accurately as possible. An additional advantage of cubic splines, from the point of view of the implementation of the described method, is their continuity at all given points up to and including second-order derivatives (smoothness). This allows us to calculate with good accuracy not only the concentration of reagents, but also the instantaneous rate of change at any time. The consequence of this is the possibility of a sufficiently accurate solution of the inverse problem based on the data of non-stationary experiments. The correctness of the mathematical model used and the stability of the method were tested using variations of the original data. An example of using the method for determining the intervals of physical values of the rate constants of the stages of a two-stage reaction is given. The influence of the method of selecting the reference points (structure) of the spline and measurement errors (noise) of experimental data on the error of determining the speed constants of the stages is estimated. The efficiency of application and good accuracy of the method for solving the inverse problem of chemical kinetics of multistage reactions occurring in non-gradient systems with taking into account of noise is shown.