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Propagating chemical waves in the uncatalysed gallic acid–bromate system

Abstract

Chemical oscillatory systems which include at least one autocatalytic reaction step are of interest as thermodynamically open systems in which temporal and spatial structures are produced. These systems also show other types of unusual kinetic behaviour1. To analyse the elementary steps of their kinetics the simplest possible reactions are needed especially in relation to nonlinear thermodynamics2. The theory of these chemical reactions is still only at the level of a simplified mathematical model, and theoretical results are in poor agreement with experimental findings. Therefore it is important to study other examples of spatial dissipative structures corresponding to chemical systems which exhibit oscillations. We report here observations of the oscillating reaction between bromate and the phenolic compound gallic acid in which propagating chemical waves occur.

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Pehl, KW., Kuhnert, L. & Linde, H. Propagating chemical waves in the uncatalysed gallic acid–bromate system. Nature 282, 198–199 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/282198a0

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