Calorimetry may be used to monitor the course of a reaction, since the instantaneous heat flux of the reaction, which is directly related to the enthalpy change for the reaction, is monitored. Reaction calorimetry may be classified as a differential technique since the primary data collected are proportional to rate vs. time. From these data, the starting material or product concentration over time may be obtained by simply taking the integral of a polynomial fit to the experimental curve.
While reaction calorimetry is less frequently employed than a number of other techniques, it has found use as an effective tool for catalyst screening. Reaction calorimetry has also been applied as an efficient method for mechanistic study of individual reactions including the prolinate-catalyzed α-amination of aldehydes and  the palladium catalyzed Buchwald-Hartwig amination reaction.