Chemical Instabilities

On March 14-18, 1983 a workshop on "Chemical Instabilities: Applications in Chemistry, Engineering, Geology, and Materials Science" was held in Austin, Texas, U. S. A. It was organized jointly by the University of Texas at Austin and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and sponsored qy NATO, NSF, the University of Texas at Austin, the International Solvay Institutes and the Ex xon Corporation. The present Volume includes most of the material of the in vited lectures delivered in the workshop as well as material from some posters, whose content was directly related to the themes of the invited lectures. In , recent years, problems related to the stability and the nonlinear dynamics of nonequilibrium systems invaded a great num ber of fields ranging from abstract mathematics to biology. One of the most striking aspects of this development is that subjects reputed to be "classical" and "well-established" like chemistry, turned out to give rise to a rich variety of phenomena leading to multiple steady states and hysteresis, oscillatory behavior in time, spatial patterns, or propagating wave fronts. The primary objective of the workshop was to bring together researchers actively engaged in fields in which instabilities and nonlinear phenomena similar to those observed in chemistry are of current and primary concern : chemical engineering (especially surface catalysis), combustion (dynamics of ignition, flame sta bili t; y), interfaces (emulsification, dendritic growth), geology (regularly repeated patterns of mineralization 1n a variety of spabe scales), and materials science (dynamical solidification, behavior of matter under irradiation).

I Chemical Kinetics. - The Search for New Chemical Oscillators. - Chemical Dissipative Systems and the Measure of Chaos. - Theoretical and Experimental Studies of Catalytic Reactions. - Sensitivity Analysis: a Numerical Tool for the Study of Parameter Variations in Oscillating Reaction Models. - II Combustion. - Isothermal Autocatalysis in the CSTR: Exotic Stationary-State Patterns (Isolas and Mushrooms) and Sustained Oscillations. - Thermokinetic Oscillations and Multistability in Gas-Phase Oxidations. - Dynamics of Premixed Flames. - Linear Stability of a Planar Reverse Combustion Front Propagating through a Porous Medium: Gas-Solid Combustion Model. - Propagating Flames and their Stability. - Secondary Bifurcation in Flame Propagation. - Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Thermal Explosion. - Fluctuations in Combustion. - Studies of Thermal Fluctuations in Nonequilibrium Systems by Monte Carlo Computer Simulations. - III Interfaces. - Mechanical Instability and Dissipative Structures at Liquid Interfaces. - Interfacial Instability in Binary Mixtures : The Role of the Interface and its Deformation. - Chemically Driven Interfacial Instabilities. - Shape Instabilities of Moving Reaction Interfaces. - Morphological Stability During Unidirectional Solidification : Influence of Melt Rheology and Marangoni Convection. - Mode Selection on Interfaces. - IV Geology. - The Self Organization of Liesegang Bands and Other Precipitate Patterns. - Examples of Patterns in Igneous Rocks. - Survey of Geochemical Self-Patterning Phenomena. - Modeling Nonlinear Wave Propagation and Pattern Formation at Geochemical First Order Phase Transitions. - Chemical Instabilities and Shocks in a Non-Linear Convection Problem Issued from Geology. - V Materials Science. - Dynamical Processes DuringSolidification. - Instabilities in the Pulsed Laser Irradiation Melting and Solidification. - Spatial Structures in Nonequilibrium Systems. - Formation of Chemical and Mechanical Structures During the Oxidation of Metals and Alloys.