Demystification of entangled Mass Action Law

Heliyon. 2023 Apr 5;9(4):e15201. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e15201. eCollection 2023 Apr.

Abstract

Recently, Gorban (2021) analysed some kinetic paradoxes of the transition state theory and proposed its revision that gave the "entangled mass action law", in which new reactions were generated as an addition to the reaction mechanism under consideration. These paradoxes arose due to the assumption of quasi-equilibrium between reactants and transition states. In this paper, we provided a brief introduction to this theory, demonstrating how the entangled mass action law equations can be derived in the framework of the standard quasi steady state approximation in combination with the quasi-equilibrium generalized mass action law for an auxiliary reaction network including reactants and intermediates. We also proved the basic physical property (positivity) for these new equations, which was not obvious in the original approach.

Keywords: Entangled mass action law; Generalised mass action law; Quasi steady state; Quasi-equilibrium; Transition state.