At his Accelerating Future blog, CRN Task Force member Michael Anissimov offers an interesting entry titled "What Will the First Nanotechnology Products Be?"
I put future MNT [molecular nanotechnology] products into three categories:
- Products or structures composed only of filled volumes or empty space (air, water, or vacuum), with no moving parts
- Products or structures based on the six simple machines (inclined plane, wheel and axle, lever, pulley, wedge, screw) and combinations thereof
- Products to be integrated with other chemicals, advanced electronics, smart functionality, etc.
Michael says that Group 1 products have...
...relatively little design complexity. An engineer could sit down and design some of these products in an afternoon. Pre-MNT designs will be ported to carbon-based designs quite easily and quickly, suggesting these products will be the first and built in large quantities. They are also the least ethically problematic and as such are most likely to be approved for construction by the law. If feedstock and energy requirements are low, there will be an economic incentive to take full advantage of the new manufacturing technology.
A few of the many Group 1 examples he provides are:
- Walls, beams, walkways, domes, trusses
- Furniture, dishes, cutlery
- Windows, lenses, bulbs
- Enclosures, containers, barriers
- Terrestrial and marine platforms
- Highly efficient greenhouses
- Suspension bridges
- Water filtration systems
Continuing, he suggests that Group 2 products are...
...more ethically problematic, as weapons and other force-projecting devices begin to pop up in this class. However, they are also some of the most useful and demand for these machines will be high. Limits will need to be set for power and energy densities, as well as size and weight. Large-scale construction projects will create significant thermal and acoustic pollution, with unknown consequences.
Some Group 2 examples include:
- Windmills, waterwheels, flywheels, turbines
- Basic medical tools
- Exaflop desktop rod logic computers
- Powerful pumps and large reservoirs
- Cranes and other construction equipment
- Large tracked vehicles
- Powerful subterranean drills
- High-speed centrifuges
- Supersystems for carbon sequestration
Finally, Michael says that Group 3 products are...
...a bit more complicated to design, so it may be a matter of weeks, months, or even a couple years before conventional product designs are ported into reliable carbon-based versions. If it takes a while to develop nanofactories that can work with materials besides carbon, then manufacturing polyelemental products will require a multi-step fabrication process. If a significant portion of the product, such as structural components, can be built in a nanofactory, then this will drastically simplify the process and reduce costs, but the need for exotic materials such as low-temperature superconductors or delicate electronics will ensure that the more advanced products will depend on centralized manufacturing schemes, at least for a while. The primary defining characteristic of Group 3 products is a substantial quantity of non-carbon material.
And a few of his Group 3 examples include:
- Trains, planes, ships, and automobiles
- Superships, aircars, airships, spaceships
- High-power motors, crankshafts, and pistons
- Autonomous robotics
- Ubiquitous surveillance systems
- Advanced laptops, palmtops, and wearables
- Prosthetics and cybernetic implants
- High-performance nuclear power plants
- City-sized climate control systems
- Holodeck-like play environments
You'll definitely want to read the whole article, and then offer your own product suggestions!
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
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