Abstract
In this paper, we present a new and interesting optimal scheme of order eight in a general way for solving nonlinear equations, numerically. The beauty of our scheme is that it is capable of producing further new and interesting optimal schemes of order eight from every existing optimal fourth-order scheme whose first substep employs Newton's method. The construction of this scheme is based on rational functional approach. The theoretical and computational properties of the proposed scheme are fully investigated along with a main theorem which establishes the order of convergence and asymptotic error constant. Several numerical examples are given and analyzed in detail to demonstrate faster convergence and higher computational efficiency of our methods.