Critical slowdown of transitional processes in an isothermal perfect-mixing flow reactor

Abstract

For nonlinear models of chemical kinetics, there can be both hysteresis in the steady-state reaction rate and slow relaxations, specifically, anomalously slow changes in characteristics of a chemical process upon the stabilization of the system at a stable steady state. Based on a parametric analysis of a kinetic model of catalytic oxidation, we have singled out near-bifurcational conditions under which there are physically meaningless steady states that lie close to the reaction simplex and are responsible for the slow relaxations.