SEQUENTIAL DESIGN INCLUDING INITIAL EXPERIMENTAL RUNS FOR A KINETIC-STUDY OF PROPYLENE OXIDATION

A sequential design strategy for selecting experimental runs to obtain model discrimination and precise parameter estimation is tested via a simulation study of propylene oxidation kinetics. The strategy is use d to design all runs including the preliminary ones which were arbitra rily chosen by earlier researchers. To design initial runs, crude init ial parameter guesses may be used in the rival models until least squa res estimates can be calculated. Even under conditions of very bad ini tial guesses and high error variances, this procedure selects whicheve r model is the correct one and estimates with precision its parameters , in fewer runs than previously reported.