A discrete reaction model of sooting combustion is proposed on the grounds of multi-stage representation of oxidation chemistry. It is demonstrated that the predictions are in fair agreement to the measured data, and show the correct trends with no adjustments to the soot modelling concept. The practical applications of the model are also presented. The algebraic nature of the model relationships makes it easy to bring them into the computational loops of available predictive tools, so that it is believed the present model has the potential to supplant or complement the similar methods in the engineering computational analysis of combustion. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.