Analytical and numerical computation of self-oscillating gels driven by the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction

Abstract

Self-oscillating gel is a class of deformable polymers driven by Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reactions, which can form periodic deformations without any external stimuli, and are widely used in the research of micro actuators, AI sensors, drug release carriers or biomimetic materials. However, quantitative study on formation of the self-oscillating gel is limited especially from the perspective of energy conservation. This work adopts frequency domain analysis to the chemo-mechanical model, and the basic frequency is obtained to evaluate the maintenance energy of the deformable gel. For accurate computation, boundary value problem with unknown period is formulated; then, continuation algorithm based on technique of perturbation is performed to obtain the periodic trajectories with varying model parameters. The results could be implemented to design self-oscillating gels with prescribed periodicity.