Influence of Belousov-Zhabotinsky substrate concentrations on autonomous oscillation of polymer chains with Fe(bpy)3 catalyst.

We studied the effect of initial substrate concentrations in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction on the optical transmittance self-oscillation behavior of a polymer chain consisting of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) and a Fe catalyst ([Fe(bpy)3]). The driving force of this transmittance self-oscillation was the solubility difference between the reduced and oxidized states of the [Fe(bpy)3] moiety in the polymer chain. The amplitude of the soluble-insoluble self-oscillation of poly(NIPAAm-co-[Fe(bpy)3]) was significantly smaller than that of poly(NIPAAm-co-[Ru(bpy)3]). Theoretical simulation results attributed this behavior to the small difference in the solvent qualities, C*, of the reduced and oxidized states. Furthermore, we clarified that poly(NIPAAm-co-[Fe(bpy)3]) required a narrower concentration range of HNO3 to exhibit self-oscillation than poly(NIPAAm-co-[Ru(bpy)3]), since transmittance self-oscillation occurred only for [HNO3] = 0.3 M. The period of self-oscillation of poly(NIPAAm-co-[Fe(bpy)3]) in solution was controlled mainly by NaBrO3 concentration and was hardly influenced by the initial concentration of malonic acid.