Chemical Cycle Kinetics: Removing the Limitation of Linearity of a Non-equilibrium Thermodynamic Description

Chemical cycle kinetics is customarily analyzed by means of the law of mass action which describes how the concentrations of the substances vary with time. The connection of this approach with non-equilibrium thermodynamics (NET) has traditionally been restricted to the linear domain close to equilibrium in which the reaction rates are linear functions of the affinities. We show, by a pertinent formulation of the concept of local equilibrium in the mesoscopic description along the reaction coordinates, that the connection between kinetic and thermodynamic approaches is deeper than thought and holds in the nonlinear domain far from equilibrium, for higher values of the affinity. This new perspective indicates how to overcome the inherent limitation of classical NET in treating cyclic reactions, providing a description of closed and open cycles operating far from equilibrium, in accordance with thermodynamic principles. We propose that the new set of equations are tested and used for data reduction in chemical reaction kinetics.