# Reaction Rule

A reaction rule has essentially the same form as a chemical reaction and serves as a template to define different individual reactions. Once defined, reaction rules serve to form an entire reaction class.

Within a reaction class, reactants undergo a common type of transformation. All involved reactants share explicitly specified properties and indeed only chemical species that share these properties can qualify as reactants in setting up the reaction rule. Unset or unspecified properties within a reaction rule are assumed not to affect the modeled chemistry of the rule by having no impact on its reaction rate. If bench experimental results later show the need for additional property inclusion, the reaction rules may be modified accordingly. This simplification focuses on what is known and allows for automatic evaluation of the reaction rules in deriving a reaction network.