The Society of Manufacturing Engineers has produced a video about molecular manufacturing. (Hat tip to Foresight's newsletter for the pointer.) Note that although the video is pricey, the script is available for free.
The video looks at what a number of companies, including Zyvex and Nanorex, are working on these days. Mark Sims, the president of Nanorex, explains how his company's molecular CAD program is intended to bridge the gap between molecules and larger machines. Sims also discusses the workings of nanofactories. Jim Von Ehr, the CEO of Zyvex, talks about the company's research goals: to build top-down nanomanipulators and bottom-up molecular structures--and make them meet in the middle, for bottom-to-top manufacturing. Tihamer Toth-Fejel, of General Dynamics, explains a concept that he developed while working with me on a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts grant: a primitive molecular manufacturing system that uses molecular machines attached to a surface to build more machines on a facing surface, leading to the all-important scaleup.
The video is also about nanomanufacturing. Let me take a minute here to talk about the terms. Molecular manufacturing (MM) is the use of molecular machines to make more molecular machines and products by precise, mechanically guided chemistry. I have been unable to find a definition for nanomanufacturing. As the US National Nanotechnology Initiative uses it, it seems to refer to the goal of improving manufacturing methods for nanoscale technologies. So although the two terms are confusingly similar, they have very different meanings. But sometimes the confusion can produce good results, as in this video where the terms are used interchangeably--and the segments on MM and nanomanufacturing seem to share a focus on making useful stuff out of molecules with tiny tools. As the areas of nanotechnology shift from studying to making stuff, researchers will start to find that MM methods look increasingly attractive. And this time around, the confusion of terms may actually help molecular manufacturing rather than obscuring it.
On the nanomanufacturing side, we hear from NASA and NanoInk. NASA talks about various uses of nanomaterials and structures for spaceflight, including nanostructures that can absorb carbon dioxide and release it later. (One of the questions that's sometimes raised about a nanofactory is how it will import its chemical feedstock. Work like NASA's may help to design useful molecular structures.) NanoInk does nanoscale (but imprecise) fabrication of 2D structures by making tiny quantities of material flow from a scanning probe microscope tip onto a substrate. What is interesting is that they now have arrays of 55,000 tips. If arrays like this were used for atom placement, and each tip could place one atom per second, it would take only five hours to place a billion atoms--by some estimates, the number needed for a first, smallest nanofactory.
This video makes it clear that molecular manufacturing ideas are not very far from the mainstream anymore, and are already being worked on. It also shows that enabling technologies for molecular manufacturing are advancing very rapidly. And it shows that there are multiple routes to molecular manufacturing--there's not some undiscovered secret that must be invented on an uncertain schedule, but instead, a lot of engineering toward a defined goal.
Chris Phoenix
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology weblog blog
I'm real glad to see this stuff picking up pace. It's starting to become more real with every year that passes.
Makes me wonder how things will look for nanotech in 2010.
Posted by: Jan-Willem Bats | September 21, 2006 at 03:08 AM
Me 2
Posted by: Jonathan | September 21, 2006 at 01:52 PM