Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics View on Kinetics of Autocatalytic Reactions—Two Illustrative Examples

Autocatalytic reactions are in certain contrast with the linear algebra of reaction stoichiometry, on which rate equations respecting the permanence of atoms are constructed. These mathematical models of chemical reactions are called conservative. Using a non-equilibrium thermodynamics-based theory of chemical kinetics, it is shown how to introduce autocatalytic step into such (conservative) rate equation properly. Further, rate equations based on chemical potentials or affinities are derived, and conditions for the consistency of rate equations with the entropic inequality (the second law of thermodynamics) are illustrated. The theory illustrated here can be viewed as a tool for verifying and generalizing traditional mass-action kinetics by means of modern non-equilibrium thermodynamics, which is able to deal also with such rather problematic cases.