“…Experimental and theoretical investigations in this direction have been going on for quite a while, see [17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30]. The emerging picture, however, might be sometimes confusing.…”
We study the effects of an external electric field on both the motion of the reaction zone and the spatial distribution of the reaction product, C, in an irreversible A- + B+ -->C reaction-diffusion process. The electrolytes A identical with (A+,A-) and B identical with (B+,B-) are initially separated in space and the ion-dynamics is described by reaction-diffusion equations obeying local electroneutrality. Without an electric field, the reaction zone moves diffusively leaving behind a constant concentration of C's. In the presence of an electric field which drives the reagents towards the reaction zone, we find that the reaction zone still moves diffusively but with a diffusion coefficient which slightly decreases with increasing field. The important electric field effect is that the concentration of C's is no longer constant but increases linearly in the direction of the motion of the front. The case of an electric field of reversed polarity is also discussed and it is found that the motion of the front has a diffusive as well as a drift component. The concentration of C's decreases in the direction of the motion of the front, up to the complete extinction of the reaction. Possible application of the above results to the understanding of the formation of Liesegang patterns in an electric field is briefly outlined.
“…Experimental and theoretical investigations in this direction have been going on for quite a while, see [17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30]. The emerging picture, however, might be sometimes confusing.…”
We study the effects of an external electric field on both the motion of the reaction zone and the spatial distribution of the reaction product, C, in an irreversible A- + B+ -->C reaction-diffusion process. The electrolytes A identical with (A+,A-) and B identical with (B+,B-) are initially separated in space and the ion-dynamics is described by reaction-diffusion equations obeying local electroneutrality. Without an electric field, the reaction zone moves diffusively leaving behind a constant concentration of C's. In the presence of an electric field which drives the reagents towards the reaction zone, we find that the reaction zone still moves diffusively but with a diffusion coefficient which slightly decreases with increasing field. The important electric field effect is that the concentration of C's is no longer constant but increases linearly in the direction of the motion of the front. The case of an electric field of reversed polarity is also discussed and it is found that the motion of the front has a diffusive as well as a drift component. The concentration of C's decreases in the direction of the motion of the front, up to the complete extinction of the reaction. Possible application of the above results to the understanding of the formation of Liesegang patterns in an electric field is briefly outlined.
“…The first such experiments were carried out in the twenties of the last century. [21][22][23] Recently, Sharbaugh and Sharbaugh 24 performed such experiments with the CuSO 4 /Na 2 CrO 4 system in silica gel. Das et al performed similar studies in 1D 25 and 2D 26 with the KI/HgCl 2 system in agar gel.…”
“…The first such experiments were carried out in the 1920s. [13][14][15] Recently, Sharbaugh and Sharbaugh 16 studied experimentally the effect of an electric field on Liesegang bands in the CuSO 4 /Na 2 CrO 4 system in silica gel. They applied a series of voltages from À2.6 V to 45 V and observed that rings do not form if the voltage is 5 V or higher.…”
Evolution of Liesegang patterns in an electric field was studied experimentally in the AgNO 3 /K 2 Cr 2 O 7 /gelatine system. The distance of the last (nth) band as a function of their appearance time can be described by the equation X n ¼ c 1 t 1/2 + c 2 t + c 3 . A numerical model, based on Ostwald 's supersaturation theory, predicted the same functional law. Experiments showed that the ratio of the distances of two consecutive rings, the spacing coefficient, decreases with increasing electric field strength and this behaviour was also reproduced by the numerical model.
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