Periodic and irregular wave patterns in an open tubular gel reactor

In an open quasi-one-dimensional Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction-diffusion system we investigated simple periodic, complex and irregular spatiotemporal concentration patterns emerging under oscillatory boundary conditions. Symmetric (identical) feed concentrations were used at each boundary of a tabular gel reactor and the length of the system was varied. For tubes shorter than 11 mm the intrinsic wavelength is larger than half the length of the tube. In this case regular pairs of pulse waves are generated. When the length of the tube was increased we found more complex spatiotemporal behavior. Small inevitable differences in the oscillation frequencies at the boundaries finally lead to irregular patterns. The Karhunen-Loeve decomposition technique was applied for an analysis of the observed patterns.