ATP Usage

[The Thing]

How much energy does ATP give off when it changes to ADP? Can we somehow harness that energy to, say, power nanobots? Is this an exploitable area. I'm asking because I'm considering doing a project on this in a university lab hopefully. Any suggestions is welcome. How can I actually SHOW that the energy can be used? How can I convert the heat that ATP gives off to electricity efficiently? And how much ATP is needed to power say a very small lamp (battery powered ones)

[ecoli]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate

 

According to Wikipedia, nanotechnology is working on how to employ ATP to power pacemakers... sounds similiar to what you want.

[Yggdrasil]

The (delta)G for the hydrolysis of ATP is about -30.5 kJ/mol.

[atp_master]

What would happen if you injected pure ATP into your brain?

[Bluenoise]

Well since I don't believe it would have any way of getting into the cells you'd probably just pee it out.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure there is not way for our cells to transport atp over the cell membrane.

[atp_master]

But if there was a way to inject ATP directly into the brain cells, how do you think the recipient would react to such an energy surge within the brain itself?

[ecoli]

What would happen if you injected pure ATP into your brain?

 

Im guessing you'd suffer from sort of of medical side effect from getting something injectedin your brain... besides, you're body gets enough energy from the food, why would you need a different source?

[BhavinB]

There are ways of powering things with ATP. Go look up chemical motors.

Friend of mine is working on a linear actuator powered by ATP.

[Bluenoise]

But if there was a way to inject ATP directly into the brain cells, how do you think the recipient would react to such an energy surge within the brain itself?

 

Depends on how much.

 

Just a little more?

 

It would go through this reaction. ATP + AMP = 2 ADP Like there are buffers and controls to keep ATP levels constant. Glycolysis would pretty much stop until the basline was regained. Some of the excess would be funnelled into gluconeogenesis for energy storage. But not much since storage capacity of neurons is pretty limited.

 

Way to much more?

 

It would kill you.

 

But in no way would it make your brain work better (If that's what you're looking to hear). Well unless it was deficient in the first place.

 

It would be a baaaaad idea.

 

plus what E. coli said about general negative effects of having a needle poking into your brain.

[The Thing]

Wow, an ATP powered linear actuator? How much energy is produced from that stuff if I, say, put 100g of ATP decompsing into ADP in a jar of water to heat the water to use the steam to drive a turbine?

How does one extract ATP from cells? Or can you synthetically, er, synthesize it and use that? I would suppose that extracting from cells wouldn't give you a pound all at once, so how do I get the ATP to power a motor?

[BhavinB]

Ya, I'm not in the field, but I'm sure you can easily find the information with any university library account.

But just conceptually, you'd need a certain concentration of ATP, not mass. Plus, the active components of any device will have something similar to cells and proteins to convert the ATP.

 

B

[Yggdrasil]

Wow' date=' an ATP powered linear actuator? How much energy is produced from that stuff if I, say, put 100g of ATP decompsing into ADP in a jar of water to heat the water to use the steam to drive a turbine?

How does one extract ATP from cells? Or can you synthetically, er, synthesize it and use that? I would suppose that extracting from cells wouldn't give you a pound all at once, so how do I get the ATP to power a motor?[/quote']

 

These motors and actuators opearate on the nanoscale, so they're not exactly the same kind of motors as one encounters in everyday life.