pH oscillating system for molecular computation as a chemical Turing machine

It has previously been demonstrated that native chemical Turing machines can be constructed by exploiting the nonlinear dynamics of the homogeneous oscillating Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction. These Turing machines can perform word recognition of a Chomsky type 1 context sensitive language (CSL), demonstrating their high computing power. Here, we report on a chemical Turing machine that has been developed using the H2O2–H2SO4–SO32––CO32– pH oscillating system. pH oscillators are different to bromate oscillators in two key ways: the proton is the autocatalytic agent, and at least one of the reductants is always fully consumed in each turnover─meaning the system has to be operated as a flow reactor. Through careful design, we establish a system that can also perform Chomsky type 1 CSL word recognition and demonstrate its power through the testing of a series of in-language and out-of-language words.