A new system for studying spatial front instabilities: the supercatalytic chlorite-trithionate reaction.
We show that the chlorite-trithionate reaction is "supercatalytic"; i.e., the formal kinetic order of the autocatalyst H(+) is 2. A simple model is proposed and discussed to describe the unusual concentration dependencies of one-dimensional front propagation found experimentally. It is also demonstrated that at relatively wide concentration ranges the linear two-dimensional front initiated loses its stability, giving rise to an appearance of cellular structures in a convection-free system. Compared to the chlorite-tetrathionate reaction, however, this system is much more stable at alkaline conditions, even for hours; therefore, no side reactions can be taken into consideration to check whether they may have any side effects on the evolution of spatiotemporal structures.
Department of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Pécs , Ifjúság útja 6., H-7624 Pécs, Hungary.
György
G
Csekő
Lin
L
Ren
Yang
Y
Liu
Qingyu
Q
Gao
Attila K
AK
Horváth