Hi @Afnanyasir,
If you have prior knowledge about a model, then just use that functional form.
For example, in physics, if an object falls from height "h" with a certain initial velocity (v0), then the vertical position of the object (as a function of time) is (g is gravitational constant):
y(t) = h + v0*t + (1/2)gt^2
If the experiment you're doing involves falling objects, then you would use this equation and no other, so it's not an empirical formula, but a first-principles formula. If you have a first-principles formula from physics or chemistry, go ahead and use it.
But, based on what you're saying, it sounds like from previous work that you have an indication it's a linear model based on alkali dosage and temp, and just wanted to check if there were any cross terms or higher order terms to it. By running it through a RSM, you can get a good indication as to what factors might be important or not. However, that p-value you point to is more about the parameter estimate value and whether or not it falls within the 95% confidence interval. So, all it means is that the parameter estimate is not very good.
If you want to know whether a term, such as A*B or A^2 or B^2 should be in a model, I recommend running it through the stepwise or GenReg Personalities in the Fit Model platform. You could also try a PLS or GLM personality and see what you find there.
As an example, with the Big Class.jmp example data, you can run an RSM on age using height and weight as "A" and "B". If you do that, the Effect Summary plot tells you which factors (and combinations) are relevant, if their P-value is << alpha. These are the kind of p-values you want to look at.
For your work, it sounds like your response, SCOD Increase is just linearly dependent on Temp and Alkali Dose. Whatever is the simplest model and one that you can verify, then go for that, by all means.
As a last bit of advice, if you have a small data set, you might want to look at validating the model, you should look into the autovalidation JMP add-in and see if that can help you.
Hope this helps!,
DS