Automation of a stopped-flow spectrophotometer for the determination of reaction-rate parameters. Part I

Abstract

A stopped-flow spectrophotometer was automated using a digital transient waveform recorder interfaced to a commercial 8-bit microcomputer. An assembly language program was used to acquire the kinetic data from the transient waveform recorder. A non-linear least-squares program was used to determine the rate constants from the stopped-flow kinetic data. The performance of the system was evaluated using electronic simulation and reaction rate data from the reaction of 2,6-dichlorophenolindophenol with ascorbic acid. The effect of varying the number of data samples on the calculated rate constant was investigated.