Guidelines to formulating reaction mechanism

The most fundamental basis for mechanistic speculation is a complete analysis of the reaction products. It is essential to obtain a complete quantitative and qualitative analysis for all products of the reaction. Such analyses can provide essential clues as to the identity of the reaction intermediates. 

The atomic and electronic structure of the reactants and products may point to the nature of possible intermediate species. The structural arrangement of atoms in the molecules that react must correspond at the instant of reaction to interatomic distances appropriate for the formation of new species. 

All of the elementary reactions involved in a mechanistic sequence must be feasible with respect to bond energies. Bond energy considerations also may conclude that highly endothermic elementary reactions will be slow processes because of the large activation energies normally associated with these reactions. 

The number of elementary reactions employed must be sufficient to provide a complete path for the formation of all observed products. 

All of the intermediates produced by the elementary reactions must be consumed by other elementary reactions so that there will be no net production of intermediate species. 

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Despite these explorations and knowledge on mesoscales, mesoscale transport phenomena and mechanisms would continue to be a chaUenge for multiphase reaction systems. For example, there are currendy no general guidelines to identify the dominant mechanisms and formulate the stability... 

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