Coarsening of precipitation patterns in a moving reaction-diffusion front

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2009 Nov;80(5 Pt 2):055102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.80.055102. Epub 2009 Nov 23.

Abstract

Precipitation patterns emerging in a two-dimensional moving front are investigated on the example of NaOH diffusing into a gel containing AlCl3 . The time evolution of the precipitate Al(OH)_{3} can be observed since the precipitate redissolves in the excess outer electrolyte NaOH and thus it exists only in a narrow optically accessible region of the reaction front. The patterns display self-similar coarsening with a characteristic length xi increasing with time as xi(t) approximately sqrt[t] . A theory based on the Cahn-Hilliard phase-separation dynamics, including redissolution, is shown to yield agreement with the experiments.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't