Classification of Clock Reactions

Autocatalytic systems are sometimes designated as clock reactions or reactions that exhibit clock behavior. To resolve the recent dispute over the term clock reaction, we describe a new approach to classify systems featuring clock behavior into three distinct groups: substrate-depletive clock reactions, autocatalysis-driven clock reactions, and systems that have pseudo clock behavior. Many of the well-known classical and recently discovered reactions can conveniently be put into these categories. We also provide a convincing argument for classifying some autocatalytic processes as clock reactions, but it does not necessarily mean that all autocatalytic processes should be classified as autocatalysis-driven clock reactions. This classification can be conveniently performed if the kinetic nature of the given system has been completely elucidated and understood.