Density fingering of an exothermic autocatalytic reaction.

Density fingering of exothermic autocatalytic fronts in vertically oriented porous media and Hele-Shaw cells is studied theoretically for chemical reactions where the solutal and thermal contribution to density changes have opposite signs. The competition between these two effects leads to thermal plumes for ascending fronts. The descending fronts behave strikingly differently as they can feature, for some values of the parameters, fingers of constant amplitude and wavelength. The differences between up and down going fronts are discussed in terms of dispersion curves and nonlinear dynamics. The theoretically predicted dispersion curves are experimentally evidenced with the chlorite-tetrathionate reaction.