With Brownian Motors scientists want to utilize the chaotic thermal movement of particles within ambient temperature.
A ratchet mechanism could be the key to free energy (for a demo look at: http://monet.physik.unibas.ch/~elmer/bm/).
Very interesting is that Brownian Motors are well accepted by the scientific community. Unlike other free energy topics there are some articles on Brownian Motors even at leading magazines like "Annalen der Physik" (http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/theo1/hanggi/Papers/376.pdf) or "Applied Physics" (http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/theo1/hanggi/Papers/287.pdf).
Although the authors always state that there is no violation of the 2nd law because there is energy needed to realize the ratchet mechanism there are some facts that are not consistent to the 2nd law: Unlike traditional motors Brownian Motors don't need a net force, nor a concentration or temperature gradient for a directed motion.
As Brownian Motors only indirectly make use of thermal movement of gas or liquid molecules their efficiency must be very low. For a significant higher efficiency we would need a kind of Maxwell's Demon which is directly using the movement of gas molecules. I believe nanotechnology is the key for this Maxwell's Demon.
What is your opinion?
Andreas Varesi
I expect that an array of billions of nano nozzles each built on a scale of tens of nanometers facing the same way between two chambers would aggregate net Brownian movement. Each nozzle has a installed structure which imposes a preferred direction of travel on its volume of fluid (gas or liquid) A nozzle is a segment of a conical hollow with a small opening on one side that tapers to a large opening on the other side. Fluid tends to bounce off the interior wall and leave on the side of the large opening. This is a mechanical analogue of the diode array. It can be used to separate fluid mixtures or provide hydraulic power. There are ways to mass etch tapering pores.
I have published this concept so that everyone can use it without excluding others.
Xloha, Charlie
Hello Charlie Brown,
your concept sounds quite plausible. Do you have a link to your publication or are there already any prototypes available?
Thank you in advance.
Andreas
I think we already have something simular with the saltwater cells.
As there is also lots of micro dust carbon in these cells, these cells also rectify
some wavelength, probably mostly X-Rays.
Regards, Stefan.
Fission track etching is one way to make straight pores of uniform size. Etchants that avoid entering the pores may be one way to flare the pores as they exit to the outer surface. Everyone is so well connected nowdays that its easier for inventors to find prototype experts than do things themselves. Sometimes people can grasp ideas as gestalts with little need of elaboration. We need to find a nanomachine shop that gets the idea of nanonozzles and fills in the details of execution. I expressed the idea of nanonozzle fluidic brownian pumps to Robert G. Hockeday Jr. in Albeqerque NM many years ago. He referred me to fission track etching. He said he would try to make a prototype. He got busy with domestic life with his wife, Mary who is also a Physicist.
Aloha, Charlie
Aeronometers are wheels of vanes used to measure wind speed regardless of direction. I expect that fraction of a micron scale aeronometers would work off the random movements of gas molecules. A cylinderical surface covered with very many vanes set to capture wind favoring one direction of axial rotation should rotate with great torque as a brownian motor. The opponents of this strategy argue that favorable vane surfaces always have anti favorable backsides on a real perimeter. Conical cup vanes may work. Someone should dare to try it.
Aloha,
Charles M. Brown
Similar to other sharks, dogfish have placoid scales, which are spiny and covered in an enamel-like substance. Sometimes referred to as dermal denticles because of their similarity to teeth, shark scales slant towards the tail end of the shark and reduce friction against water, making swimming easier. Sharkskin is so rough that it used to be utilized to polish wood, as sandpaper is used today. When the scales are removed, however, the skin can be cured and employed as leather.
the above was pasted from http://www.olympusmicro.com/galleries/abramowitz/pages/dogfishsharkskinscalessmall.html
It also has a pic of sharkskin under a microscope....if you coated your cylinder with this so that the 'teeth' faced in one direction (cicumfirential as opposed to axial) and you had a small enough fricion coeficient in the berring you might have something....perhaps apply to a levitating magnet to test your theory?
Slanted teeth are one way for Maxwell's Demon to work. They should work for the simple pressure demon where a pressure differnce is built up by a differentiated response to moving gas or liquid molecules according to the direction of movement. The opponents of? Maxwell's Demon argue that the small mass of the tooth tip causes it to flex rapidly and anti sort at the same time sorting is attempted nullifying the differerentation. I don't think anti sorting will happen. The opponents desperately want to hold on to the world yiew of the Grey Death of the Universe because it gives a role for God as the Great Clock Winder. A world of endlessly recycled energy would have a more sophisticated God rather than no God. I think the diode array is simple and powerful so I want to focus the limited devlopment resources on it. Anyway, wouldn't a chip with a total area of many square nanometers resting on slanted perhaps slightly flexible teeth and / or slightly flexible surface drift in one direction under brownian impacts of a gas?
Edit added ~ +1/4 hr: Alternately the whole rest surface can be covered with oriented teeth that nanospheres resting on top drift across.
Aloha,
Charles M. Brown
Edit 2: I emailed the idea to nano lab as an important experiment.
Edit 3: Email not accepted through.
"The opponents of Maxwell's Demon argue that the small mass of the tooth tip causes it to flex rapidly and anti sort at the same time sorting is attempted nullifying the differerentation"
Voila...there you have it...a nano quartz crystals dream....peizoelectric sharkskin drums? either it will rotate and generate or vibrate and generate....if it vibrates, we have less friciton loss...all the better
I'm inspired within this group to think of extracting biochemicals from mixtures: A row of metal stripes like train track is coated with a selective binding agent that is directly (possible) or indirctly (very likely) responsive to electric charge. Serial triads of the track are fed the sweeping pattern of electrical pulses (1)+00 (2)0+0 (3)00+ (& repeat) which carries the biochemical of interest down the track as it is passed along the charged stripes. The device will not change in temperature if powered by intamately integrated diode array electricity. I was inspired in general by zone refining, the cover featured article in Scientific American ~Dec. ~199x.
Aloha, Charlie
What outcome, other than chemical transport across a medium, will this provide?
It's selective. The biologicals it is prepared for will be isolated. There may be alias materials that would need another process to sort.
Aloha, Charlie
Quote from: Charlie Brown ARN on April 12, 2005, 06:59:02 AM
Aeronometers are wheels of vanes used to measure wind speed regardless of direction. I expect that fraction of a micron scale aeronometers would work off the random movements of gas molecules. A cylinderical surface covered with very many vanes set to capture wind favoring one direction of axial rotation should rotate with great torque as a brownian motor. The opponents of this strategy argue that favorable vane surfaces always have anti favorable backsides on a real perimeter. Conical cup vanes may work. Someone should dare to try it.
It has already been tried, it works and was publicated at Science magazine:
The front cover of Science, July 24, 1998 featured an unexpected result from Esprit's NANOWIRES project - a molecular wheel, spinning at very high speed. Designed and synthesised by IBM Zurich and CEMES, this self-docking molecule - hexa-butyl decacyclene (or HB-DC) - is propeller-shaped and has a diameter of about 1.75 nanometres. "We were studying molecular switches, using a voltage pulse from an STM tip to trigger a reversible change in HB-DC," recalls James Gimzweski, in charge of nano-engineering at IBM Zurich. "One day we saw a ring where a molecule should have been, and eventually figured out that we were looking at a molecule of HB-DC spinning at a fantastic rate."... The thermal energy at room temperature was enough to get the molecule spinning.
More info you can find here: http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/rtdinf21/en/dossier2.html
Regards
Andreas Varesi
10-4. WONDERFUL.? Now we have perpetually spinning molecules. The next step in this research thread is to connect a number of propeller units pole to pole into a cylinder of many vanes to increase the torque. Each vane is a mechanical rectifier.? ?
With drill bits on them - don't swallow them.
Andreas Varesi: May I reprint your post?
Aloha, Charlie
Quote from: Charlie Brown ARN on April 16, 2005, 06:37:07 PM
10-4. WONDERFUL.? Now we have perpetually spinning molecules. The next step in this research thread is to connect a number of propeller units pole to pole into a cylinder of many vanes to increase the torque. Each vane is a mechanical rectifier.? ?
The main question is, who can do this? Only the laboratory of a university or of a big company. If we ask them, they will ignore us - that's the sad reality.
Quote from: Charlie Brown ARN on April 16, 2005, 06:37:07 PM
Andreas Varesi: May I reprint your post?
It's a pleasure to me.
Regards
Andreas
I recently sent this email. JKG is/was in charge of nanoengineering at IBM Zurich. I often openly send copies of email correspondance.
Ken, Neda, James K. Gimzewski,
Have you increased the torque of this effect by increasing the number of vane projections and / or their efficiency?
I just joined AAAS - free level. I hold US Patent 3,890,161 DIODE ARRAY where very many very small diodes in consistent alignment parallel aggregate rectified johnson noise for concurrent refrigeration and electrical power release. In 1993 Forrest Labs [lost to contact] under my commission modified a Au multiple anode on N type GaAs sattelite transponder diode patch and tested it in a shielded inert vegetable oil bath observing 50 nw , > 1/2kTB. The next step is a C60 multiple anode @ 10^11 / cm2 on N type InSb prototype. There are limits on how much I am allowed to write to you about this matter. Your response would be appreciated.
Aloha,
Charles M. Brown
I sent out this email recently,
subject: Retraction of claims of nanoaeronometer obseved having unidirectional thermal rotation
I must retract. The rotating molecule was not rotating in a consistent direction driven solely by random molecular impacts. I do not know if there was any preference in direction. I also don't know if the rotation was powered or directed by current from the microscope probe. Feynman's conclusion that ratchets do not yield unidoirectional motion was interpreted to be true by the researchers. The vanes on the molecules were distinctly propeller shaped but not markedly cup shaped. I will pass on news of nanoaeronometers if I hear of it. My enthusiasm was based on the abstract before reading the full article attached.
Aloha,
Charlie
Hi Charlie,
thank you for this information, it would have been too easy. But perhaps there is another solution.
Andreas
I think it can be tinkered into working but I'm nowhere near the equipment and they didn't answer my email. One way responsive to Feynman's opposition is to have multiple pawls guarding the ratchet wheel. The number of pawls is the exponent in the reliability of the pawls. When the plurality of pawls is reliable enough, the springs holding the pawls to the ratchet are not needed so the pawls revert to their proper function. Another answer is to make a molrcule with proper cups on the arms.
Aloha, Charlie