Is the carnot cycle important in biological systems Explain

Is the carnot cycle important in biological systems? Explain.

I know the answer is that it depends, I just can\'t remember why it depends.

Solution

The Carnot cycle reperesents the most efficient heat engine cycle where the process is reversible and involves no change in entropy. This means Carnot cycle is an ideal process. We can draw only some some similarities between biological processes like metabolism and Carnot Cycle. Most of the biological processes are irreversible, most of which are catalysed by enzymes which separates the uncatalaysed and catalysed reaction by an infinite timescale. Metabolism in the reversible limit of timescale could be compared to Carnot cycle. Also, the transport of particles which occurs due to a difference in gradient (chemical potential) in the cells (example osmosis) can be compared to the transport of entropy which occures to a difference in the temperature in the Carnot cycle.