Building a foundation for bioenergetics

To give students a lasting comprehension of bioenergetics, first such basics as heat, work, equilibrium, entropy, free energy, closed versus open systems, steady state, and reversibility should be explained to them in a meticulous manner, albeit with a minimal use of mathematical formulae. The unique feature of thermodynamics, that it does not require any structural, mechanistic, and kinetic assumptions and models about the microscopic nature of the matter, should be exploited. Its laws could be considered as given, reflecting simply empirical observations that science has found unassailable so far. The familiarization of the students with the basic concepts should rely more on problem solving exercises than on the molecular mechanistic explanations. Only at a later phase should structural molecular inferences be made and (if justified) more rigorous mathematical derivations given. When the students are later confronted with the seemingly complex energetics of biological processes the idea of a steady‐state reaction should be stressed. Even without nonequilibrium thermodynamics a wealth of useful information can be deduced from this simple model of metabolic reactions. Because biological processes are typically homeostatic and progress at de facto constant temperature and pressure, using the steady‐state assumption, their thermodynamic treatment can be surprisingly straight forward. Thus the conceptual role of the steady‐state model in bioenergetics might be viewed as similar in pedagogical significance to the ideal gas model of basic chemistry.