The Belousov—Zhabotinskii reaction in a continuous flow reactor

Abstract This paper describes results of a combined theoretical and experimental investigation into the behavior of the autocatalytic Belousov—Zhabotinskii reaction in a well-mixed isothermal continuous flow reactor. The theoretical portion of the study is based on a detailed kinetic model suggested in earlier work by Field, Koros and Noyes. The principal observation common to both theory and experiments is the existence of sustained oscillatory states in the reactor under some conditions and of stable non-oscillatory states under others. Reasonable quantitative and qualitative agreement between experimental and theoretical results is obtained through manipulation of some of the kinetic parameters. However, the theoretical results fail to describe the detailed nature of some of the experimental oscillations and certain predicted hysteresis phenomena were not observed in the laboratory.