Molecular Manufacturing Flashcards
Molecular manufacturing
The design and production of molecules that have a particular composition, shape and function. Once the structure has developed its unique three-dimensional shape, the molecule has effectively organised itself. It is now ready to act as an extremely small machine or device in the human body or in the environment.
Carbon nanotubes
take the form of cylindrical carbon molecules and have novel properties that make them potentially useful in a wide variety of applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science.
They exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat.
The diameter of a nanotube is a few nanometers (approximately 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair), while they can be up to several millimeters in length.
Nanorobots
the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to the scale of a nanometre (10-9 metres). As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created, they remain a hypothetical concept at this time.
Chemical sensors
are important for a variety of industrial and environmental applications, including the detection of hazardous chemicals, quality control in the food, perfume, and beverage industries, and medical applications.
There are many different types of chemical sensors but they all share two components:
Receptors: The receptor is the component of the chemical sensor that comes into physical contact with the analyte. The latter (sensors that target molecules in an analyte) are referred to as more “selective.”
Transducers: Transducers are responsible for taking in the chemical information of the interaction between the receptor and analyte and converting it into corresponding electrical information. This information is then sent to a computer or a mechanical component. The transducer may increase or decrease resistance, trigger an audible alarm, or present the data on a screen (interface).
A perfect example of a commonly used chemical sensor in action is a breathalyser
Proteins (as atom assemblers and molecular recognition agents)
Molecular motors, also called molecular machines, are either natural or synthetic molecules that convert chemical energy into mechanical forces and motion. An example of a biological motor is the protein kinesin, which uses the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate to move along microtubule filaments.
