Endothermic microbial growth. A calorimetric investigation of an
extreme case of entropy-driven microbial growth*
U. von Stockar, I. W. Marison, and J.-S. Liu
Laboratory of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering,
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Abstract: Life is almost always associated with the generation
of heat. Thus far, all chemotrophic life forms that have been studied
in calorimeters were found to be exothermic. Certain literature reports
have even cast doubt on the existence of endothermic growth, even though
thermodynamic principles do not rule it out. The present report describes
the first experiments demonstrating the actual existence of chemotrophic
life forms that take up heat rather than produce it.
* Plenary lecture presented at the 16th
IUPAC Conference on Chemical Thermodynamics (ICCT-2000), Halifax, Nova
Scotia, Canada, 6-11 August 2000. Other presentations
are published in this issue, pp. 1799-1849.
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