IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v445y2007i7127d10.1038_nature05452.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A molecular information ratchet

Author

Listed:
  • Viviana Serreli

    (School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, The King’s Buildings)

  • Chin-Fa Lee

    (School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, The King’s Buildings)

  • Euan R. Kay

    (School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, The King’s Buildings)

  • David A. Leigh

    (School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, The King’s Buildings)

Abstract

Confront your demons In his classic thought experiment of 1867, James Clerk Maxwell imagined a tiny demon guarding a trapdoor separating two gas-filled compartments. By allowing only fast-moving molecules to pass from left to right, and slowmoving molecules right to left, the demon induces heating in the right compartment and cooling in the left. Such shifts from equilibrium violate the second law of thermodynamics. A team from the School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh — a cab ride from Maxwell's birthplace — has now developed a molecular 'machine' that mimics the battle of Maxwell's demon against equilibrium. The new demon is a specially designed rotaxane — a molecular ring threaded onto a central axle with binding sites where the ring can attach. Previous rotaxane machines were activated by disturbing the ring binding pattern; the ring shuttled between binding sites and moved the system back towards equilibrium. In the new rotaxane, information about ring location is used to move the system away from equilibrium. But the second law survives the assault, as it costs energy (provided as light) to gather and transfer molecular information.

Suggested Citation

  • Viviana Serreli & Chin-Fa Lee & Euan R. Kay & David A. Leigh, 2007. "A molecular information ratchet," Nature, Nature, vol. 445(7127), pages 523-527, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:445:y:2007:i:7127:d:10.1038_nature05452
    DOI: 10.1038/nature05452
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05452
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature05452?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sandipan Dutta, 2022. "Thermodynamics of multiple Maxwell demons," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 95(8), pages 1-7, August.
    2. Bakalis, Evangelos, 2012. "Explicit propagators for a random walker and unidirectionality on linear chains," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(11), pages 3093-3101.
    3. James Weifu Lee, 2022. "Type-B Energy Process: Asymmetric Function-Gated Isothermal Electricity Production," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-33, September.
    4. Joana Krämer & Laura M. Grimm & Chunting Zhong & Michael Hirtz & Frank Biedermann, 2023. "A supramolecular cucurbit[8]uril-based rotaxane chemosensor for the optical tryptophan detection in human serum and urine," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:445:y:2007:i:7127:d:10.1038_nature05452. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.