Primary hydrogen kinetic isotope effects refer to cases in which a bond to the isotopically labeled hydrogen is formed or broken at a rate- and/or product-determining step of a reaction. These are the most commonly measured kinetic isotope effects, and much of the previously covered theory refers to primary kinetic isotope effects.
When there is adequate evidence that transfer of the labeled hydrogen occurs in the rate-determining step of a reaction, if a fairly large kinetic isotope effect is observed, e.g. kH/kD of at least 5-6 or kH/kT about 10–13 at room temperature, it is quite likely that the hydrogen transfer is linear and that the hydrogen is fairly symmetrically located in the transition state. It is usually not possible to make comments about tunneling contributions to the observed isotope effect unless the effect is very large. If the primary kinetic isotope effect is not as large, it is generally considered to be indicative of a significant contribution from heavy-atom motion to the reaction coordinate, although it may also mean that hydrogen transfer follows a nonlinear pathway.