Autocatalyses

TL;DR

This paper explores the concept of autocatalysis across various systems, analyzing their mechanisms and behaviors, and proposes a unifying kinetic signature to characterize autocatalytic processes.

Contribution

It categorizes different types of autocatalysis, compares their properties, and introduces a mathematical kinetic pattern as a key signature of autocatalytic behavior.

Findings

Autocatalytic patterns can be generated by diverse chemical reaction systems.

Different autocatalytic systems share similar kinetic behaviors.

A mathematical form can universally describe autocatalytic kinetics.

Abstract

Autocatalysis is a fundamental concept, used in a wide range of domains. From the most general definition of autocatalysis, that is a process in which a chemical compound is able to catalyze its own formation, several different systems can be described. We detail the different categories of autocatalyses, and compare them on the basis of their mechanistic, kinetic, and dynamic properties. It is shown how autocatalytic patterns can be generated by different systems of chemical reactions. The notion of autocatalysis covering a large variety of mechanistic realisations with very similar behaviors, it is proposed that the key signature of autocatalysis is its kinetic pattern expressed in a mathematical form.