ABSTRACT
This chapter describes several novel designs for open reactors, in which spatiotemporal chemical patterns can be sustained far from thermodynamic equilibrium, and explores phenomena observed in these reactors using oscillating chemical reactions. Pattern formation is the most fascinating subject in nature. Spatial patterns in chemical reactions arise mainly from the interaction between reaction kinetics and diffusion of different species. Nonlinearities are the main ingredients for pattern formation in chemical systems, as well as in other nonlinear systems, and play important roles only when the system is far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Oscillating chemical reaction was discovered as early as 1921, but did not attract much attention until the discovery of the now well-known Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction some thirty years later. A simple overflow mechanism defines the reactor volume and facilitates the removal of chemicals. The transport of reagents in the ring reactor and the Continuously Fed Unstirred Reactor is through molecular diffusion, which is about 10–5 cm2/s.
