Reaction mechanism

A reaction mechanism is the process from the reactant to the product of a mostly chemical reaction, intermediates and transition states are fully characterized. It must be consistent with the rate equation, stoichiometry and the observations of stereochemistry. Conclusions on the electron motion can be indicated with curved arrows ( ↷ ).

In organic chemistry, the most of the steps of a reaction mechanism known elementary reactions can be assigned. In nuclear physics, the decay chains from the various decay modes are constructed as elementary steps. Another elementary step is nuclear fusion.

The elucidation of a reaction mechanism is an inverse problem in which not only the model parameters have to be determined, but the structure of the model is initially unknown. In this case, experiment and modeling alternate. Observed dependence of the rate of reaction (see reaction kinetics ) or the product spectrum (see Chemical Analysis ) as the temperature or the pH value and (often spectroscopy ) short-lived intermediates. This can be referred to in the Chemical Reaction Engineering as a reaction network.

Many reaction mechanisms are named after their discoverers, and are called named reaction. Thus, the Baker - Venkataraman rearrangement of several elementary organic reactions, the Belousov -Zhabotinsky reaction consists mainly of inorganic reactions and the Bethe - Weizsäcker - cycle of nuclear fusion and decays.