Molecular nanotechnology (MNT) combines chemistry, biology, and physics to manipulate individual atoms and molecules for building materials, eradicating disease, and restoring the environment. MNT could provide clean energy, eliminate disease, heal the environment, produce intelligent materials, and help third world nations. However, the potential dangers of MNT are as persuasive as its benefits.
Molecular nanotechnology (MNT) is a revolutionary science that combines principles of chemistry, biology and physics to propose nanoscale microscopic devices that would mechanochemically manipulate individual atoms and molecules for the purpose of building materials, eradicating disease and restoring the environment; thus making the potential benefits of MNT wide-ranging and game-changing.
MNT is based on the knowledge that basic biochemical and biophysical processes taking place at the molecular level mimic industrial assembly machinery at the microscopic scale. This is perhaps most easily seen in the example of DNA, which is a molecular chain of instructions for building a macroscopic structure from the bottom up. The “tools” that carry out the actual construction are natural biochemical processes. By harnessing these processes in the form of direct manipulation at the atomic level and augmenting them with computerized biomechanical control, a new era of possibilities opens up.
To name just a few potential benefits of MNT:
PLENTY OF CLEAN ENERGY –
MNT’s benefits include the ability to make solar power viable through the production of “indestructible” solar cells that could be painted onto roads and roofs, easily exceeding the nation’s energy requirements. MNT would also enable the production of pollution-free fuels, ending the energy crisis and making energy affordable.
ELIMINATE DISEASE AND EXTEND LIFE –
Nanomedicine promises an era of unprecedented power to stay healthy for life by virtue of in vivo microscopic nanorobots that could repair the body of essentially all disease at the cellular level. AIDS, cancer and even genetic diseases would become a thing of the past, as would wrinkles, arthritis, vision problems and other age-related diseases. People might be expected to live much longer lives with a higher quality of life.
HEALING THE ENVIRONMENT –
The potential benefits of MNT for the environment are as staggering as its potential benefit for medicine. Scientists envision swarms of microscopic nanorobots sweeping through the oceans, stripping down pollutants to protect and preserve the marine environment; others clean the air of the billions of tons of carbon dioxide that are dumped there each year, and still others restore forests and reintroduce extinct species, resulting from habitat loss and pollution. The damage caused by the industrial revolution could be reversed while MNT technology could support a much larger population with potentially much lower environmental impact.
INTELLIGENT MATERIALS AND GREEN PRODUCTION –
The advantages of MNT include the ability to manufacture products of all kinds at low cost from the atom up with programmable desktop “nanofactories”. Virtually anything allowed by the laws of nature could be made without polluting labor or factories (somewhat similar to the replicator in Star Trek). Programmable software would drive the building process, including the nanofactory’s ability to replicate itself. An entrepreneur could design, manufacture and produce a product for sale all in one workday. Sprawling industrial plants would become obsolete, freeing up land, reducing pollution and saving a large percentage of water intended for industrial use.
Benefits of MNT would also include new and exotic ‘smart materials’ with the ability to encode assembly or repair instructions into the material itself. Imagine self-growing products with self-healing directions in their DNA. Furniture that assembles itself and “repairs” scratches or nicks. Engines that repair themselves and clothes that adapt to the weather.
For a suggestive look at the possible high-tech applications of the benefits of MNT, K. Eric Drexler, “father of MNT” and author of Engines of Creation (1986) and Nanosistemi (1992), offers the intriguing suggestion of a rocket engine that not only repairs itself, but changes shape like muscle tissue when different thrust, strength and aerodynamic requirements come into play.
The raw chemicals for nanofactories would be obtained through disassemblers that use natural tools such as enzymes, ions and free radicals to break down matter (e.g. recycled products, by-products of the manufacturing process, etc.) into basic building blocks, making nanotechnology extremely clean and expensive efficient. Instead of digging into landfills, the waste could be recycled into building materials for the homeless. The savings for producers and the benefits for the public and the environment would be cumulative and exponential.
HELPING THIRD WORLD NATIONS –
Since the benefits of MNT include the ability to produce products from a programmable machine the size of a carry-on bag, an impoverished village without the money to invest in infrastructure could, with a single nanofactory, make filters for contaminated water supplies, materials for shelter, greenhouses and wastewater management. MNT could dramatically improve quality of life, reduce disease, promote agriculture and make clean water available to all. Add nanomedicine to this scenario and we see the ability to change not just industrial nations with NCDs, but the entire world.
COMPUTER MINIATURIZATION AND AI –
The value in MNT manufacturing is that you get exact precision, atom for atom. For computers this translates into the next stage of miniaturization as impurities in materials can be eliminated and challenging structures can be assembled. Extremely small and powerful computers will be cheap and plentiful, available to even the poorest people (probably with optional voice interfaces). Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) would provide superhuman capabilities.
SPACE COLONIZATION –
Another advantage proposed by the MNT is that the weightless payload of nanotechnology makes it very economical to send to space. Advanced MNT devices could rapidly prepare planets for human occupation by building structures, changing the composition of the atmosphere or performing other critical tasks; while nanomedicine could customize the human body for space travel and perhaps even to tolerate other atmospheres.
Just as some physicists believe superstrings are the elusive answer to Einstein’s longed-for “theory of everything,” MNT could be seen as a unifying technology that not only has the ability to heal humans and the planet, but to propel us into a new era of clean industry and limitless possibilities, dramatically changing, prolonging and enhancing life as we know it in ways unimaginable, all within the next 10-30 years.
However, the potential dangers of MNT are as persuasive as its benefits. While the generations of the past 100 years have doggedly and successfully assimilated a dizzying array of vastly improved technologies, MNT is exponentially different. It will be much more powerful, portable, cheaper and, if nanofactories are widely accessible, available. Be that as it may, science is destined to march towards what it now knows is possible, and we, some willingly, some perhaps not, are destined to march with it.
For more information on the potential benefits and dangers of MNT, the Center For Responsible Nanotechnology serves as a public information hub with ongoing updates and news.
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