Chemical Oscillations and Instabilities

Scientists in many fields are now expressing considerable interest in non-linearity and the ideas of oscillations and chaos. Chemical reactions provide perfect examples of these phenomena since oscillating reactions, explosions, ignition, travelling waves, patterns, quasiperiodicity, and chaos are all features of chemical kinetics.

This book introduces non-linear phenomena in chemical kinetics using simple model schemes. These models 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 behaviour will occur can be predicted using simple mathematical recipes, and these are also included.