Turing patterns, spatial bistability, and front interactions in the [ClO2, I2, I-, CH2(COOH)2] reaction.

Recent experiments by Szalai and De Kepper performed in open spatial reactors have shown that the rich variety of dynamic properties of the chlorine dioxide-iodide-chlorite-iodine-malonic acid family of reactions is far from being exhausted: stable inhomogeneous patterns due to front interactions and transient labyrinthine structures are now added to the spatial bistability and Turing patterns as possible spatial behavior. The two latter phenomena, already observed in the chlorine dioxide-iodide (CDI) and the chlorine dioxide-iodide-malonic acid (CDIMA) reactions, respectively, were kept as limiting cases in the new setup. In this paper, we numerically analyze an extension of the most detailed available model of the CDI system (Lengyel et al.) including a reaction between I2 and MA that comes from the presence of the latter into the flow. The resulting nine-variable model is simulated in one and two dimensions, taking into account the proper constraints of the boundary-fed system. The nonequilibrium phase diagram closely follows the results of the experiments of ref 1. In particular, the model reproduces observations on spatial bistability, stationary front interactions, and Turing patterns. In addition, it predicts a new region of spatial bistability.