Dimensional analysis of diffusive association rate equations.

Abstract

Diffusive adsorption/association is a fundamental step in almost all chemical reactions in diluted solutions, such as organic synthesis, polymerization, self-assembly, biomolecular interactions, electrode dynamics, catalysis, chromatography, air and water environmental dynamics, and social and market dynamics. However, predicting the rate of such a reaction is challenging using the equations established over 100 years ago. Several orders of magnitude differences between the theoretical predictions and experimental measurements for various systems, from self-assembled monolayers to protein-protein aggregations, make such calculations meaningless in many situations. I believe the major problem is that the time-dependent evolution curve of Fick's gradient is an ideal assumption in most cases, and its slope is significantly overestimated. This paper digs into Fick's gradient problem for 3D cases and provides a solution using the single-molecule diffusion probability density function discretely.