Редактирование: Molecular Machinery (раздел)

== Sorting ==

===Neon Pump===

''"That is also a rotary motor driven by gas pressure if you operate it in the opposite direction. Push gas through it and you’ll get rotary motion. It’s a really nice motor."'' - [[Robert Freitas]]

This design of a neon pump includes two components. The pump casing, which includes a chamber wall with a hollow tube containing the rotor housing, and the rotor itself. In one mode of operation it could serve as a pump (for neon atoms) and in another it could be used to convert neon pressure to drive the rotor, making it a rotary motor.

This NanoEngineer-1 molecular dynamics simulation of the neon pump took over 8 hours to complete on a Dell laptop (Pentium M, 2.0GHz and 1GB RAM).

The jiggling of atoms seen in this simulation results from the thermal motion of atoms, not from mechanically induced vibration. Thermal vibration is a natural occuring phenomenon that is visible in dynamical simulations at this scale.

Dr. Drexler provides this description of the pump:

<blockquote>''The left image shows the chamber wall on the bottom, followed by a tube containing the pump housing; above this is the pump rotor.''</blockquote>

<blockquote>''The right image is a close-up view of the rotor, showing a grooved cylindrical bearing surface at each end, supporting a screw-threaded cylindrical segment in the middle. In operation, rotation of the shaft moves a helical groove past longitudinal grooves inside the pump housing. Only where facing grooves cross is there room for even a small gas molecule, and these crossing points move from one side to the other as the shaft turns.''</blockquote>

''  - K. Eric Drexler''

===Sorting Pump===

This molecular sorting pump was a Nanorex collaborative design led by K. Eric Drexler, Josh Hall and Damian Allis starting in late 2006. The idea for this pump was inspired by the sorting pump depicted in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEYN18d7gHg the Nanofactory video] (at 1:30) which selectively processes acetylene molecules. The goal was to design a sorting mechanism that was more detailed (and plausible) than the sorting rotor depicted in the animation.

The pump is driven by a [[Molecular Machinery#Worm Drive | worm drive]] that was modeled and then simulated using [[Software#NanoDynamics|NanoDynamics]].

An animation depicting the operation of this molecular sorting pump [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfuvLT4bbbA can be viewed here at YouTube].

===Abstract Sorting Pump===

==== Compound ====

=== Turbopump ===

Not much is known about this design. Macroscale vacuum pumps are limited by the vapor pressure of their lubricants. Fullerene, being a superlubricant, has no such problem, and so fullerene-coated diamondoid positive-displacement pumps can be constructed to serve as UHV pumps.

The effectiveness of such pumps depends on the ratio of blade speed to thermal speed of the lightest molecule being pumped. Using diamondoid, the speed will easily exceed the thermal speed of Hydrogen, providing a <math>\geq</math>10 ratio for each blade row<ref>'''The statistical theory of turbomolecular pumps'', J.G Chu and Z.Y. Hua, The Modern Physics Institute, Fudan University, Shanghai, PRC.</ref>.