Nonlinear Kinetics and New Approaches to Complex Reaction Mechanisms

This paper reviews recent developments in the field of nonlinear chemical kinetics. Five topics are dealt with: (a) new approaches to complex reaction mechanisms, stoichiometric network analysis, classification of chemical oscillators and formulation of their mechanisms by deduction from experiments, and correlation metric construction of reaction pathways from measurements; (b) thermodynamic and stochastic theory of nonequilibrium processes, the eikonal approximation, the evaluation of stochastic potentials, experimental tests of the thermodynamic and stochastic theory of relative stability, and fluctuation-dissipation relations in nonequilibrium chemical systems; (c) chemical kinetics and cellular automata and lattice gas automata; (d) theoretical approaches and experimental studies of stochastic resonance in chemical kinetics; and (e) rate processes in disordered systems, stochastic Liouville equations, stretched exponential relaxation in disordered systems, and universality classes for rate processes in systems with static or dynamic disorder.