) evolve according to the rate constants of each reaction following massaction kinetics. The system is open because the concentrations of fuel (Fmoc-Cl) and waste (HCl -liberated as part of the fueling reaction, and subsequently neutralized by KHCO 3 that is present to produce KCl, CO 2 and H 2 O -and dibenzofulvene and CO 2 produced during the waste-forming reaction) species are kept constant through addition from, or removal to, an external source. An important quantity for our analysis is the chemical potential gradient between the fuel and waste species (µ Fmoc-Cl -µ HCl -µ dibenzofulvene -µ CO 2 ) which we denote µ F -µ W . For any thermodynamically consistent set of parameters (see Methods), the system will