Reaction-diffusion on metric graphs and conversion probability

Abstract

Motivated by a problem in heterogeneous catalysis, we study a model for irreversible first-order reactions in which gas transport occurs only by diffusion, and reaction occurs only at a small number of well-localized sites. The main problem is to determine fractional conversion in terms of the diffusion coefficient and geometric properties of the reactor. We formulate an appropriate stochastic model for this problem, and then show that, when the domain is composed of a network of thin tubes, reasonably explicit formulas can be obtained.