Friction in diffusion transport
One may also want to call this more fancily "energy dissipation in diffusion transport".
Diffusion transport is not free.
Just as in any type of transport there needs to be energy dissipated such that
– there is a defined arrow of time
– there is a source and a target
It is just that diffusion transport dissipates the energy not along the way but at the "toll stations".
I soft nanotechnology that are typically cell membrane crossings or chemical transformations at sites fixed in space.
The "change money" problem
As "toll stations" are not interconnected in soft nanosystems and molecules can only be used up in whole chunks,
excess energy cannot be used to drive a reaction somewhere (somewhen) else.
That is soft nanosystems do not provide the opportunity of dissipation sharing.
