pH-oscillations in the bromate-sulfite reaction in semibatch and in gel-fed batch reactors

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pH oscillating system for molecular computation as a chemical turing machine

It has previously been demonstrated that native chemical Turing machines can be constructed by exploiting the nonlinear dynamics of the homogeneous oscillating Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. These Turing machines can perform word recognition of a Chomsky type 1 context sensitive language (CSL), demonstrating their high computing power. Here, we report on a chemical Turing machine that has been developed using the H2O2-H2SO4-SO32--CO32- pH oscillating system. pH oscillators are different to bromate oscillators in two key ways: the proton is the autocatalytic agent, and at least one of the reductants is always fully consumed in each turnover─meaning the system has to be operated as a flow reactor. Through careful design, we establish a system that can also perform Chomsky type 1 CSL word recognition and demonstrate its power through the testing of a series of in-language and out-of-language words