Sensitivity of the chlorite–thiosulfate system: A stochastic approach

Abstract

The chlorite–thiosulfate reaction provides us with an example of isothermal chemical reaction giving rise to explosive-like behavior in batch condition. Experimental results show that this phenomenon is characterized by high sensitivity, reflected in particular by the fact that reaction times occur randomly despite the care taken to prepare initially the system in identical states. In the present paper a reaction scheme reproducing explosive dynamics analogous to the experimental data is proposed and the effects of fluctuations of different origins on the reaction time are examined. As it turns out, both internal and external fluctuations induce a significant broadening of the probability distribution of explosion times as well as an asymmetry in its shape. The effect of random initial conditions is also analyzed and shown to affect deeply the explosive behavior.