Asymptotic analysis of chemical reactions

Chemical reaction schemes are typically simplified by considering the contr olling steps of the process, the 'fast' reactions being taken into account by quasi-equilibrium assumptions. Traditionally, intuitive reasoning is emp loyed to arrive at the simplified system. This may, however, be cumbersome and sometimes misleading. In this paper a systematic approach is presented that guarantees that the simplified model coincides with the asymptotics of the original one. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.