Liquid membrane oscillators Original Research Article

A short review of the different approaches to the mechanism of oscillations of electric potential difference between aqueous phases of liquid membrane oscillators is presented. More attention is paid to the mechanisms of oscillations proposed in our laboratory. For systems with cationic surfactant and ethanol the sudden adsorption and desorption of surfactant molecules at the aqueous acceptor phase/liquid membrane phase interface reinforced by the continuous feeding by diffusion are responsible for the observed oscillations. Adsorption and desorption of both alcohol and surfactant at the same interface are responsible for the oscillations in case of the system with anionic surfactant and butanol. The mechanisms were confirmed by mathematical simulations. The dynamics of the systems investigated is chaotic as shown by the attractors obtained in two-dimensional phase space.