Fabrication of New Belousov–Zhabotinsky Micro-Oscillators on the Basis of Silica Gel Beads

Abstract

We have fabricated and examined silica gel beads loaded with a catalyst of the Belousov−Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction, tris(2,2′-bipyridyl)ruthenium(II) chloride, Ru(bpy) 3 Cl 2 , the BZ beads. The abilities of silica gel and the widely used ion-exchange resin (Dowex 50WX2) BZ beads to oscillate in a catalyst-free BZ solution are compared. The period of the BZ oscillations increases with an increase in the diameter (40−250 μm) of both types of the BZ beads. The ability of the ion-exchange resin beads to hold catalyst molecules significantly decreases with a decrease in pH, while this value is less dependent on pH for the silica gel BZ beads. The diffusive coupling of two BZ beads separated by either aqueous or oil gaps is studied as well. For the aqueous gap less than 100 μm, the BZ beads of both types demonstrate in-phase synchronization. For the oil phase, the Dowex BZ beads are unable to oscillate for a long enough time and therefore cannot be synchronized, while the silica gel BZ beads are able to oscillate for several hours and demonstrate anti-phase synchronization for gaps less than 40 μm.

On the Optimum Geometry and Training Strategy for Chemical Classifiers that Recognize the Shape of a Sphere

“…A number of reports on the information processing potential of networks composed of interacting chemical BZ-oscillators have appeared in the recent decade [33,34,35,36]. Our experiments have shown that networks of oscillators formed by touching droplets containing water solution of reagents of an oscillatory BZ-reaction can be stabilized by lipids dissolved in the surrounding oil phase.…”

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“…A high uniformity of droplets that form the network can be achieved if droplets are generated in a microfluidic device [ 32 ]. One can also use DOVEX beads or silica balls [ 33 ] to immobilize the catalyst and inhibit oscillations by illumination or electric potential [ 34 ].…”

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“…The bubbles of gas can appear between droplets, deform them, and change interactions between oscillators. We therefore believe that solid objects loaded with the catalyst, like DOWEX beads (Kuze et al, 2019 ) or silica gel beads (Mallphanov and Vanag, 2020 ), seem to be more suitable for experiments with information processing using a network of oscillators. Also, the strategy of optical communication described by Gentili et al ( 2017 ) can be applied to control interactions between oscillators and the inflow of input data.…”