Reaction calorimetry as an in-situ kinetic tool for characterizing complex reactions

Due to its ability to provide directly reaction rate data and its in-situ nature, reaction calorimetry has become one of the most powerful probes of reaction pathways and mechanisms of chemical reactions by virtue of providing high-quality kinetic data. In this paper, examples of enantioselective hydrogenation and selective consecutive hydrogenation reactions are presented to demonstrate the high quality of kinetic data obtainable from the reaction calorimetry. They are also used to illustrate the use of reaction calorimetry for elucidating reaction pathways and mechanisms from detailed kinetic and thermodynamic information about individual step involved in multi-step reactions that is otherwise difficult to obtain without calorimetry.