Temperature gradients traveling with chemical waves

Local thermal inhomogeneities traveling with oxidation wave fronts are measured in an excitable liquid layer of Belousov-Zhabotinsky reagent. Measurements are carried out with an infrared thermopile detector and a pyroelectric film. An exothermic reaction occurring in these excitation fronts generates a local temperature rise of 50 mK. This result allows one to exclude that temperature changes act constructively in the mechanism of convection processes induced by chemical waves and yields a clear indication that the driving forces have to be produced by local concentration changes alone.