ON THE PRACTICAL RELEVANCE OF BIFURCATION AND CHAOS IN CHEMICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL REACTION-ENGINEERING

This paper presents a condensed exposition of some of the research wor k on the bifurcation and chaotic behavior of industrially and fundamen tally important chemical and biochemical reaction engineering systems. Two cases are presented: a forced industrial fluid catalytic cracking unit and an enzymatic system. The Poincare bifurcation diagrams obtai ned for both cases reveal their richness in dynamic behavior. Various routes to chaotic behavior have been identified including period doubl ing, intermittency crisis.