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arXiv · 0907.2502

Extracting chemical energy by growing disorder: Efficiency at maximum power

Massimiliano Esposito·Katja Lindenberg·Christian Van den Broeck
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Abstract

We consider the efficiency of chemical energy extraction from the environment by the growth of a copolymer made of two constituent units in the entropy-driven regime. We show that the thermodynamic nonlinearity associated with the information processing aspect is responsible for a branching of the system properties such as power, speed of growth, entropy production, and efficiency, with varying affinity. The standard linear thermodynamics argument which predicts an efficiency of 1/2 at maximum power is inappropriate because the regime of maximum power is located either outside of the linear regime or on a separate bifurcated branch, and because the usual thermodynamic force is not the natural variable for this optimization.

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Massimiliano Esposito, Katja Lindenberg, Christian Van den Broeck. 2009-07-15. Extracting chemical energy by growing disorder: Efficiency at maximum power. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-5468%2F2010%2F01%2Fp01008

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