Complex systems contain a population of components interacting with one another to generate outcomes that are not obviously predictable from the known properties of the individual parts. The resultant patterns, structures or properties displayed by the system are often described as emergent phenomena, where due to the non-linearity of the component interactions, the whole is indeed greater than the sum of the parts. The world is full of complex systems such as neural networks, economic systems, the internet, and societies such as ant colonies. The latter represents one of the most accessible illustrations of this principle. Colonies achieve magnificent feats of engineering and resource management without any top down dictation of tasks. Instead the organisational and structural features of the colony emerge from the ground up as a consequence of the individual ants following simple rules in response to their interaction with one another and other external stimuli.
Chemical systems that have the potential to display emergent properties are especially challenging to study for (at least) two reasons. The complexity of the system may overwhelm analytical techniques preventing an understanding of the detailed composition. This in turn makes observation of any emergence properties difficult as only changes to input and any outputs may reveal the presence of self-organisational features. Despite these challenges we are interested in establishing and studying complex non-equilibrium chemical systems for properties such as chirality amplification and selective catalysis.