Author(s): Samuel Andersen
Mentor(s): Jianlong Han, Seth Armstrong, Sarah Duffin
Institution SUU
A chemical reaction of interest to mathematicians and chemists alike is the autocatalytic reaction. The simplest example is the reaction A + 2B -> 3B, where there is a secondary reaction B -> C that acts as the poisoning of the catalyst B. We solve the system of differential equations that represent the concentrations of species A and B over time, and subsequently solve for the steady state solutions of the reaction. To validate our results, we compare three different numerical methods, including a new nonstandard method which is more computationally efficient and robust than the other methods studied.