Chemical self-organization in self-assembling biomimetic systems

Far-from-equillibrium oscillating chemical reactions are among the simplest systems showing complexbehaviors and emergent properties. This class of reactions is often employed to mimic and understand themechanisms of a great variety of biological processes. In this context, pattern formation due to the couplingbetween reaction and transport phenomena represent an active and promising research area. In thispaper, we present results coming from experiments where we tried to blend the structural properties ofself-assembled matrixes (sodium dodecyl sulphate micelles and phospholipid bilayers) together with theevolutive peculiarities of the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction. A series of interesting dynamical behaviors,like spatio-temporal chaos, stationary patterns and segmented waves, were found in reaction–diffusionand reaction–diffusion–convection experiments.