Transient chaos in a closed chemical system.

Complex oscillations and even aperiodicity can exist as transient phenomena in closed chemical systems. These effects are illustrated through the analysis of a simple, isothermal chemical model based on mass action kinetics for autocatalytic feedback, involving the conversion of a reactant to a final product via three intermediate species. The use of the so-called pool chemical approximation and of pseudo-steady-state analyses for such systems is indicated and discussed, particularly with relevance to ‘‘real’’ chemical situations where small perturbations due to extraneous noise are inevitably present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]