Effect of solvents on the pattern formation in a Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction embedded into a microemulsion

Abstract

Using the ferroin- and the bathoferroin-catalyzed Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction embedded in the sodium-bis (2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate (AOT) water-in-oil microemulsion, we observed different patterns occurring in two different solvents, hexane and octane. Turing patterns were found in both solvents with ferroin. They differ in their interaction with coexisting bulk oscillations, such that a new excitation front was formed around the evolving Turing patterns in hexane. However, in octane, the bulk oscillation merged with the evolving patterns, forming a new excitation front, which propagated into two directions: towards the existing patterns and away from them. For the bathoferroin-catalyzed BZ reaction, patterns like dash waves, jumping waves, and bubble waves were found in both solvents having different wavelengths. A curvature dependence of the splitting and merging of dashes was found. © 2014 American Physical Society.