A General Fitting Function to Estimate Apparent Reaction Orders of Kinetic Profiles

The rapid development of analytical methods in recent decades has resulted in a wide range of readily available and accurate reaction-monitoring techniques, which allow for easy determination of high-quality concentration-time data of chemical reactions. However, while the acquisition of kinetic data has become routine in the development of new chemical reactions and the study of their mechanisms, not all the information contained therein is utilized because of a lack of suitable analysis tools which unnecessarily complicates mechanistic studies. Herein, we report on a general method to analyze a single concentration-time profile of chemical reactions and extract information regarding the reaction order with respect to substrates, the presence of multiple kinetic regimes, and the presence of kinetic complexities, such as catalyst deactivation, product inhibition, and substrate decomposition.