Calorimetric Measurements of Biological Interactions and Their Relationships to Finite Time Thermodynamics Parameters

A description and examination of the potential for calorimetry for use in exploring the entropy flows in biological and or reacting systems is presented. A calorimeter operation background is provided, and two case studies are investigated using a transient numerical simulation. The first case describes a single cell calorimeter containing a single phase material excited by heat generation source function such as joule heating. The second case is a reacting system. The basic observation parameter, the temperature, cannot be used to separate the entropy property changes and the rate of entropy production in the second case. The calculated transient response can be further analyzed to determine the equilibrium constant once the reaction equation and stoichiometric constants are specified which allows entropy property changes and the rate of entropy production to be determined. In a biological community, the equivalent of the reaction equation and a definition of an equilibrium constant are not available for all systems. The results for the two cases illustrate that using calorimetry measurements to identify the entropy flows in biological community activities requires further work to establish a framework similar to that chemical reacting systems that are based on an equilibrium type parameter.