Calculating the first-order kinetics of three coupled, reversible processes

Calculation of the concentration-time profile in four consecutive, well-mixed compartments that are connected by diffusional transport is a frequently occurring problem for chemists and engineers. Mathematically this is equivalent to many other problems such as the concentration profiles of a parent compound and its three consecutive reaction products resulting from reversible first-order kinetics. Here we present an analytical solution to this problem implemented in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (available for download) and we discuss various examples of how this simple-to-use tool can be applied to very different scenarios from various fields of science.