Review on biothermoydnamics applications: timeline, challenges, and opportunities

Abstract

Research on biothermodynamics dates back to the publication of the manuscript What Is Life? by Schrödinger in the 1940s, which encouraged the use of the fundamental principles of thermodynamics for the analysis of biological processes. In the 1960s and 1970s, development of the early genetic engineering techniques, difficulties in the sugar imports to the USA due to the trade embargo imposed on Cuba, and the oil price hike after the Arab–Israeli wars created a positive environment in the USA to foster the merger of biology with engineering. The synergy established between biology and engineering in the 1960s created an irreversible stimulus for scientific and technological development in the USA and elsewhere. Advances in biothermodynamics have roots deep in the positive environment of the 1960s and 1970s. Exergy analyses were initially used to evaluate efficiency of the fuel-utilizing and energy-utilizing processes. In the early 2010s, exergy analyses found application in development of the industrial production processes of the biological origin and later directly in the cellular processes in the body. Assessing the comfort of the body in terms of entropy generation and exergy destruction, exergy efficiency of the metabolic pathways in the brain, exergy efficiency of the muscle work, and life span entropy generation and understanding and finding ways to postpone the symptoms of aging were among these studies. Application of the biothermodynamics in the medical fields will provide opportunities in the health sciences and medical technology and improve the quality of life of humans and animals. Comparing the exergetic efficiency of the competing theories on the brain energy metabolism, offering some help to prevent heart attacks in the amputees, and finding the causes of the difference in the crop yields of the plants are among the outcomes of the current biothermodynamics research. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.