Non-equilibrium work and reversibility in active particles in disordered media

Active particles can in principle extract/do work on the environment. Here we explore experimentally a single active spinning particle in an inclined plane sliding in a disordered array of obstacles. Our results show that there are several interesting features in this system depending on the reversibility of the system during a cycle of the time reversible protocols. In particular we observe the rectification of the activity which allows the spinner to drift faster than the reference drift in the absence of obstacles. Our results should be of interest to understand under what conditions non-equilibrium systems are able to extract work from their environment and connect it to the thermodynamic counterparts.