Voronoi diagrams generated by regressing edges of precipitation fronts

• Published in: The Journal of chemical physics Vol. 120; no. 5; p. 2413
• Main Authors: de Lacy Costello, Benjamin P J, Hantz, Peter, Ratcliffe, Norman M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.02.2004
• ISSN: 0021-9606
• DOI: 10.1063/1.1635358

Reaction-diffusion systems where one of the reagents (outer electrolyte) penetrates into a gel by diffusion and forms a precipitate with the other reagent (inner electrolyte) homogenized in the gel, are able to produce various complex precipitation patterns. The previously studied NaOH + AgNO3 and recently discovered CuCl2 + K3[Fe(CN)6] processes, (where the first reagent is the outer electrolyte and the other is the inner electrolyte homogenized in the gel), when reacted using the above mentioned method, are able to generate tessellations of a plane by a mechanism dependant on the dynamics of so-called regressing edges of the reaction fronts. The spontaneous partitioning of the reacted phases results in the construction of a pattern analogous to a Voronoi diagram or one of their generalizations.