Fig. 1

Model for energy storage and driven synthesis. Without (resp. with) the orange dashed transition, the chemical reaction network models energy storage (resp. driven synthesis). The high-energy species \({\mathrm{A}}_2\) is at low concentration at equilibrium. Powering the system by chemostatting fuel (\({\mathrm{F}}\)) and waste (\({\mathrm{W}}\)) species boosts the formation of \({\mathrm{A}}_2\) out of the monomer \({\mathrm{M}}\) via the activated species \({\mathrm{M}}_2\) and \({\mathrm{A}}_2^ \ast\). a The chemical reaction network (forward fluxes are defined counter-clockwise). b Sketch of concentrations distributions (proportional to radii) and net currents (proportional to arrows thickness, see Supplementary Note 1c)