DERIVATION OF THE MATALON-PACKTER LAW FOR LIESEGANG PATTERNS

Theoretical models of the Liesegang phenomena are studied and simple e xpressions for the spacing coefficients characterizing the patterns ar e derived. The emphasis is on displaying the explicit dependences on t he concentrations of the inner and the outer electrolytes. Competing t heories (ion-product supersaturation, nucleation and droplet growth, i nduced sol-coagulation) are treated with the aim of finding the distin guishing features of the theories. The predictions are compared with e xperiments and the results suggest that the induced sol-coagulation th eory is the best candidate for describing the experimental observation s embodied in the Matalon-Packter law. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics, [S0021-9606(98)50145-6].