EDU is a strong H bond donor and H bond acceptor and it is therefore far from innocent, if transient selfassembly is the desired emergent property at steady state. As shown in Figure (blue data), we were able to use EDC as fuel over 25 cycles without any noticeable fatigue of the system. When using acetic anhydride as fuel, two equivalents of acetic acid are generated during each cycle as waste. In this case, the system shows noticeable fatigue over 25 cycles (Figure , red data). More well-behaved data over 25 cycles could be be obtained, if NaOH was added after every fifth (Figure ) or after each cycle (grey data in Figure ).