Responsible Nanotechnology

Molecular Manufacturing vs. Self-Assembly

Why was I so excited about the FNANO10 conference on self-assembly, given that self-assembly is not molecular manufacturing?

Self-assembly is a way of making large structures out of small pieces, by designing the pieces so that random ("Brownian") motion will jiggle them into place. DNA self-assembles very nicely into quite large structures - as big as 100 nanometers, almost bacteria-sized - almost big enough to see with an ordinary microscope.

A problem with self-assembly is that the pieces have to use their own structure or other properties to template their assembly. That limits and complicates the design. So templates, created by other means, are sometimes used to guide the self-assembly.

With a template, larger and more intricate structures can be built than by pure self-assembly. For example, self-assembled monolayers, using a flat surface as a template, can produce square centimeters of high-precision arrangements of molecules. Lithographed templates can arrange DNA structures in arbitrary orientations over large areas (this is cutting-edge stuff).

Molecular manufacturing uses nanoscale tools to guide the fabrication of more tools. Once you can computer-control those tools to make a programmable range of shapes, you can make more tools (both in quantity and variety) than you started with.

Self-assembly is already using templates, and templated self-assembly is pretty darn close to molecular manufacturing. Once the templates become programmable and are built using the same processes and building blocks that they guide... then that is molecular manufacturing.

With so many advances on self-assembly, it seems pretty clear that just a few years from now, we'll have primitive molecular manufacturing. More steps will be needed, of course, to design a full nanofactory and get it working. But the conceptual and practical hurdles are falling fast.

Chris Phoenix

Basic Survival Package

A few days ago, Tom Craver asked what, other than food, would I put on a list of basic life needs.

Here's my initial list of manufactured things I'd like to see everyone on earth have access to:

• Clean water
• Weatherproof and burglar-resistant housing
• Light at night
• The Web and voice communication
• Mosquito nets with long-lasting insecticide
• Optional birth control
• Clean cookstoves and/or solar cookers
• Vaccines

Many of these things are available today, at a cost where the world could afford to supply them to everyone... if we all got together and really tried. Some of these things are quite inexpensive, on a global scale. For example, the UN says that everyone could have clean water for $20 billion per year, which seems like a lot... but we spend somewhere around $20-$100 billion per year on bottled water.

There's already significant movement in this direction, as seen in these Google proposals:

As manufacturing gets less and less expensive (in large part, thanks to nanotechnology), it will be more and more possible for private individuals to make a world-class difference. According to The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist, Buckminster Fuller said in the 1970s that the planet now has the ability to provide for everyone, but it would take 50 years for us to fully act on it. In another ten years, a basic web appliance (with display, or maybe full voice interface) might cost $10 instead of $100. Likewise for a water filter. Adequate lighting might cost $3 instead of $30.

I'm not talking charity, nor communism, but simply preferring to live in a world where a small expenditure of money can give the world a billion fewer "poor people" and a billion more productive, participating citizens.

Some important things that didn't make the list:

• Clothing: Depends on individual taste; already available in most areas
• Medical care: Can't be automated and manufactured (yet)
• Food: Grown, not manufactured; should be produced locally
• Education: Some comes with the Web; some requires major human resources
• Sanitation: Probably more about education, water, and habits than manufactured stuff
• Employment opportunities
• Healthy social structures
• Decent government (information can help keep governments accountable)

I'm just starting to study this stuff, so please suggest additional ideas and corrections.

Chris Phoenix

Nanostructures Conference - Don't Miss

As molecular manufacturing advances, it's conferences like this that pull it all together:

Foundations of Nanoscience FNANO10: Self-Assembled Architectures and Devices

Topics that were theoretical or even science fiction a decade ago are now conference tracks:

• Viral Self-Assembly
• Nanoplasmonics & Nanophotovoltaics
• Self-Assembly Across Scales
• Top-down Meets Bottom-up
• Principles and Theory of Self-Assembly

Plus fullerene nanostructures, protein self-assembly, synthetic biology, molecular motors, and several others.

The conference is April 27-30 near Salt Lake City, with an NSF workshop on DNA origami being organized for April 26.

Chris Phoenix

Paperless Office and Easy Manufacturing

A decade or two ago, the phrase "paperless office" was often heard, meaning that everything on paper could be delivered on your computer screen, so there'd be no need to create, read, and store flattened inky dead trees anymore.

It didn't quite work that way. Instead, according to Wikipedia, the amount of paper in offices doubled from 1980 to 2000. Computers made it easier to create and print documents, and it turned out that people just like paper.

When we can "print" 3D objects as easily as we can print documents, will the amount of stuff we own double? Will we find ourselves printing new, generic stuff and then throwing it away, only to print more the next day? Or will we print it, become attached to it, and try to store it forever?

How many of you have stuff that you are reluctant to throw away, but have not actually touched or used in more than a year? Would you throw it away (or better yet, recycle it) if you knew you could print out a new copy in 5 minutes or less if you ever needed it again? I can think of some kitchen gadgets that fit this category. And what about stuff you've bought and never ever used?

Of course, personal-use objects are only one application of advanced 3D printing. Large objects like jumbo jets may also be easier and cheaper to produce. But that's a subject for another blog post.

Chris Phoenix

Drexler and Feynman in the Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is talking about molecular manufacturing.

Adam Keiper, who's written on nanotech several times over the years, writes about the lack of attention from the National Nanotechnology Initiative for Drexler's and Feynman's ideas.

This is one of the more mainstream mentions that molecular manufacturing has gotten. Perhaps someone will pay attention... or perhaps a combination of business-as-usual and not-invented-here will persist.

Nanodot wrote about the WSJ article, and also linked to some commentary from Richard Jones: "Perhaps for the first time in recent years a major new technology is largely being developed outside the USA ... unprecedented leading role being taken in places like China, Korea and Japan."

Chris Phoenix

Why do we need more manufacturing?

Why do we need more manufacturing capability?

I've heard that by working as little as two hours per week, Americans could keep themselves comfortably supplied with the necessities of life. This actually seems plausible, given that something like 1.5% of the population is engaged in agriculture, and manufacturing has had many decades to become similarly mature.

In the next few blog posts, I'll be exploring several interlocking questions about economy, productivity, and society, on the way to grappling with the big question: If molecular manufacturing really will provide revolutionary manufacturing capabilities... do we need it? Do we want it?

And what if we need it, but we don't want it?

Chris Phoenix