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Swimming bacteria power microscopic gears
Open accessAbstract
Whereas the laws of thermodynamics prohibit extraction of useful work from the Brownian motion of particles in equilibrium, these motions can be “rectified” under nonequilibrium conditions, for example, in the presence of asymmetric geometrical obstacles. Here, we describe a class of systems in which aerobic bacteria Bacillus subtilis moving randomly in a fluid film power submillimeter gears and primitive systems of gears decorated with asymmetric teeth. The directional rotation is observed only in the regime of collective bacterial swimming and the gears’ angular velocities depend on and can be controlled by the amount of oxygen available to the bacteria. The ability to harness and control the power of collective motions appears an important requirement for further development of mechanical systems driven by microorganisms.
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Cited by
Turning Bacteria Suspensions into Superfluids
López, H. M., Gachelin, J., Douarche, C., Auradou, H., & Clément, E. (2015) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.115.028301 · Cited by 383
The statistical physics of active matter: From self-catalytic colloids to living cells
Fodor, É., & Cristina Marchetti, M. (2018) · Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications · doi:10.1016/j.physa.2017.12.137 · Cited by 267
Films of bacteria at interfaces
Vaccari, L., Molaei, M., Niepa, T. H. R., Lee, D., Leheny, R. L., & Stebe, K. J. (2017) · Advances in Colloid and Interface Science · doi:10.1016/j.cis.2017.07.016 · Cited by 70
Metadata
- Authors
- Sokolov, A., Apodaca, M. M., Grzybowski, B. A., & Aranson, I. S.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2009-12-18
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 969-974
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- OpenAlex
- W2015049658
- Cited by
- 561
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 11.76
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Swimming bacteria power microscopic gears. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1073/pnas.0913015107
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- Sokolov, A., Apodaca, M. M., Grzybowski, B. A., & Aranson, I. S. (2010). Swimming bacteria power microscopic gears. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0913015107
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