Any isothermal cycle involving swelling and collapsing of pH-sensitive polymers, if performed quasi-statically, can produce positive net work, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics:

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/1-sma...?cb=1461682420

Thermodynamicists love to evaluate the work extractable from various quasi-static cycles - this is traditional thermodynamics. But the cycle should be non-isothermal. If the cycle is isothermal, thermodynamicists don't even think of it:

"Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity." http://ebooks..adelaide.edu.au/o/orw...hapter2.9.html

Pentcho Valev