New Functions in Artificial Membranes Based on Nonlinear Characteristics

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In the present project, the following two points were intensively studied : (1) new strategy of chemical sensing, and (2) new method of the conversion of chemical energy into vectorial processes.(1) In general, every electrochemical system exhibits nonlinear characteristics, e. g., its capacitance and conductance change markedly with applied voltage. In the present research, we proposed a new sensing method for detecting electrochemical nonlinearity. A Wien bridge oscillator based on the phhnomenon of frequency entrainment is used for this purpose. When the Wien bridge oscillator is connected to an electrochemical system, synchronization of the frequency is generated through the effect of the electrical nonlinearity. The manner of the entrainment has been reproduced by theoretical calculations based on nonlinear differential equations. As an application of this method, we have studied the effect of various taste-compounds added to the test solution on the manner of the entrainment. It has been confirmed that the manner of the entrainment changes characteristically depending on the taste-category of the compounds.(2) We have studied the manner of interference between the oscillations of rhythmic chemical reactions, such as the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. It has been found that triphasic mode is generated when three chemical oscillators couple to each other in a regular triangle connection. This mode is quite interesting, because this implies that tri-phasic alternating current is created spontaneously without any special equipment such as feed back circuit. It should be noted that torque is induced in high efficiency with the tri-phasic alternating current. Thus, this system is considered as a new method of the conversion of chemical energy into vectorial process.