Nonlinear chemical dynamics

Abstract

The interdisciplinary field of nonlinear chemical dynamics has grown significantly in breadth and depth over the past three decades. Its subject matter and applications encompass all branches of chemistry as well as areas of mathematics, physics, biology and engineering. In this Perspective, we present an overview of some of the key results of nonlinear chemical dynamics, with emphasis on those areas most likely to be of interest to inorganic chemists. We discuss the range of phenomenology from chemical oscillation to chaos to waves and pattern formation, as well as experimental methods, mechanistic considerations, theoretical techniques, and the results of coupling and external forcing.