Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Heisenbergstr. 3, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany.
Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CRPP), CNRS UMR 5031, Univ. Bordeaux, 115 Avenue du Docteur Schweitzer, 33600, Pessac, France.
Nat Commun. 2018 Aug 13;9(1):3229. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05704-5.
Chemical systems do not allow the coupling of energy from several simple reactions to drive a subsequent reaction, which takes place in the same medium and leads to a product with a higher energy than the one released during the first reaction. Gibbs energy considerations thus are not favorable to drive e.g., water splitting by the direct oxidation of glucose as a model reaction. Here, we show that it is nevertheless possible to carry out such an energetically uphill reaction, if the electrons released in the oxidation reaction are temporarily stored in an electromagnetic system, which is then used to raise the electrons' potential energy so that they can power the electrolysis of water in a second step. We thereby demonstrate the general concept that lower energy delivering chemical reactions can be used to enable the formation of higher energy consuming reaction products in a closed system.
化学体系不允许将来自几个简单反应的能量耦合起来驱动后续反应，因为该反应发生在相同的介质中，并导致生成的产物具有比第一个反应释放的产物更高的能量。因此，吉布斯自由能的考虑不利于驱动例如葡萄糖的直接氧化分解水等反应。在这里，我们表明，如果在氧化反应中释放的电子暂时储存在电磁系统中，然后利用该系统来提高电子的势能，以使它们能够在第二步中为水电解提供动力，那么仍然有可能进行这种能量上坡反应。因此，我们证明了一个普遍的概念，即较低能量的化学反应可以用来在封闭系统中形成更高能量的消耗反应产物。
