Extracting chemical energy by growing disorder: Efficiency at maximum power

TL;DR

This paper investigates the efficiency of chemical energy extraction during copolymer growth, revealing nonlinear thermodynamic effects that challenge traditional linear thermodynamics predictions at maximum power.

Contribution

It demonstrates that maximum power efficiency arises from nonlinear thermodynamics and information processing, diverging from classical linear predictions.

Findings

Efficiency at maximum power can exceed 1/2 due to nonlinear effects

System properties bifurcate depending on affinity levels

Linear thermodynamics does not accurately predict maximum power efficiency

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.