The efficiency of driving chemical reactions by a physical non-equilibrium is kinetically controlled

21 Mar 2018, 17:00
1h
Physikzentrum Bad Honnef

Physikzentrum Bad Honnef

Physikzentrum Bad Honnef Hauptstr. 5 53604 Bad Honnef Tel.: (0 22 24) 90 10 114 Fax: (0 22 24) 90 10 130

Speaker

Mr Tobias Goeppel (Physics of Complex Biosystems, Physics Department, Technical University of Munich)

Description

An out-of-equilibrium physical environment can drive chemical reactions into thermodynamically unfavorable regimes. Under prebiotic conditions such a coupling between physical and chemical non-equilibria may have enabled the spontaneous emergence of primitive evolutionary processes. Here, we study the coupling efficiency within a theoretical model that is inspired by recent laboratory experiments, but focuses on generic effects arising whenever reactant and product molecules have different transport coefficients in a flow-through system. In our model, the physical non-equilibrium is represented by a drift–diffusion process, which is a valid coarse-grained description for the interplay between thermophoresis and convection, as well as for many other molecular transport processes. As a simple chemical reaction, we consider a reversible dimerization process, which is coupled to the transport process by different drift velocities for monomers and dimers. Within this minimal model, the coupling efficiency between the non-equilibrium transport process and the chemical reaction can be analyzed in all parameter regimes. The analysis shows that the efficiency depends strongly on the Damköhler number, a parameter that measures the relative timescales associated with the transport and reaction kinetics. Our model and results will be useful for a better understanding of the conditions for which non-equilibrium environments can provide a significant driving force for chemical reactions in a prebiotic setting.

Primary author

Mr Tobias Goeppel (Physics of Complex Biosystems, Physics Department, Technical University of Munich)

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