Por Artem Ryabov (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic).

Catalytically active nanoparticles could serve as principal components of self-propelling artificial nanomotors. However, theory and experiments report conflicting findings regarding their dynamics. The lack of consensus is mostly caused by a limited understanding of specifics of self-propulsion mechanisms at the nanoscale. Here, instead of discussing particular mechanisms, we shall focus on a fundamental symmetry of kinetics of catalytic reactions powering the self-propelled motion. Namely, we shall assume the microscopic reversibility (MR) of this kinetics and demonstrate significant and qualitative effects stemming from this assumption that arise if nanoparticles are subjected to an action of external forces. Since MR is a generic property of several chemical reactions, the results can provide new insights into the dynamics of a broad class of nanoparticles.

[1] A. Ryabov and M. Tasinkevych, Soft Matter 18, 3234-3240 (2022), doi: 10.1039/D2SM00054G  
[2] A. Ryabov and M. Tasinkevych, arXiv:2206.00616 (2022), doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2206.00616