Formation of Liesegang Patterns

Abstract

It has been recently shown that precipitation bands characteristic of Liesegang patterns emerge from spinodal decomposition of reaction products in the wake of moving reaction fronts. This mechanism explains the geometric sequence of band positions x_n ~ Q(1+p)^n and, furthermore, it yields a spacing coefficient, p, that is in agreement with the experimentally observed Matalon-Packter law. Here I examine the assumptions underlying this theory and discuss the choice of input parameters that leads to experimentally observable patterns. I also show that the so called width law relating the position and the width of the bands w_n ~ x_n follows naturally from this theory.

Talk presented at NATO Advanced Workshop on Statistical Physics Applied to Practical Problems (Budapest, May 1999); to appear in Physica A. 6 pages, 1 jpeg and 3 ps figures

References in corpus (3)

• Derivation of the Matalon-Packter law for Liesegang patterns
• Formation of Liesegang patterns: A spinodal decomposition scenario
• Liesegang patterns : Studies on the width law

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