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 ${\mathrm{A}}_2^{*}$. 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)