Steady States Far from Equilibrium Autocatalysis

Conditions forcing a system to be far removed from the state of equilibrium may give rise to self organization on a supra-molecular scale. Such systems have a low entropy but a high rate of entropy production, 

A reaction at steady state close to equilibrium has a minimum rate of entropy production. As long as the deviation from equilibrium is small, the system will always move to and not away from the equilibrium state. Prigogine (1980) has shown that the law of minimum rate of entropy production is by no means a general law. Stationary states are not confined to close-to-equilibrium conditions, but may develop far from equilibrium as well. Such stationary states are accompanied by a maximum rate of entropy production. This occurs in autocatalytic systems. Under special conditions, such systems may form stationary states where the product concentration oscillates. 

Kinetics belongs to the domain of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. If the deviation from the state of equilibrium is relatively small, linearized non-equilibrium thermodynamics applies. An example in physics is the laminar flow of a liquid through a tube under the influence of a small pressure gradient. The outstanding example of a chemical system described by linear thermodynamics is a flow reactor working under steady-state conditions. This is an open system continuously fed with reactants. The potential function which describes the reaction system is the entropy production, a = dS/dt, As derived in Section 2.3, systems which are forced 

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