Chemical Oscillations and Instabilities: Non-linear Chemical Kinetics

by Peter Gray, Stephen K. Scott

Overview

Today, scientists in many fields are expressing considerable interest in non-linearity and the ideas of oscillations and chaos. Chemical reactions provide perfect examples of these phenomena. This book is an excellent introduction to the area of nonlinear phenomena in chemical kinetics that involve chemical feedback such as chain branching, autocatalysis, and self-heating. The emphasis is on physical and pictorial representation, and on identifying those gross features which are essential. The experimental conditions under which such behavior will occur can be predicted using simple mathematical recipes, and these are also included. Readers will find full discussions of long-lived oscillations for autocatalytic or exothermic reactions in closed vessels and stationary states, bistability, and oscillations in continuous flow reactors and diffusion cells. Other topics considered include chemical wave propagation, pattern selection and formation, heterogeneous reactions, complex oscillations, quasiperiodicity, and chemical chaos, both forced and spontaneous. The second part of the book describes actual experimental systems, such as the Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction, and include discussion of the behavior of important gas-phase reactions. This volume is an ideal sourcebook of applied problems for graduate courses in dynamical systems, advanced chemical kinetics, and chemical reactor engineering, as well as for research workers in physical chemistry, and mathematicians, biologists, physicists, and physiologists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198558644
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/16/1994
Series:	International Series of Monographs on Chemistry , #21
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	470
Product dimensions:	9.13(w) x 9.13(h) x 1.06(d)

About the Author

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

University of Leeds

Table of Contents

1. IntroductionPART I: The Techniques2. Oscillations in a Closed Isothermal System3. Oscillations in a Closed Isothermal System: Mathematical Analysis4. Thermokinetic Oscillations in a Closed System5. Hopf Bifurcations, the Growth of Small Oscillations, Relaxation Oscillations, and Excitability6. Autocatalysis in Well-Stirred Systems: the Isothermal CSTR7. Reaction in a Non-Isothermal CSTR: Stationary States and Singularity Theory8. Oscillatory Behavior in the Isothermal CSTR: Autocatalytic Systems9. Autocatalytic Reactions in Plug-Flow and Diffusion Reactors10. Chemical Diffusion Pattern Formation (Turing Structures)11. Travelling Waves12. Heterogeneous Reactions13. Complex Oscillations and Chemical ChaosPART II: Experiments14. Experimental Systems 1: Solution-Phase Reactions152. Experimental SystemsGas-Phase Reactions

Editorial Reviews

"This is a timely and authoritative introduction to the specifically chemical aspects of dynamical instabilities. It complements several recent books that focus on mathematical and physical principles." —Journal of the American Chemical Society

From the Publisher