We Americans tend to think of cars like the Geo Metro when we think of small cars. But what if the car was a little smaller. Let’s say that, oh, it was made up of one molecule. Last year, Rice University made such a nano car. It has a stunning wheelbase of less than 5 nanometers (um, that’s about the width of a strand of DNA!). Obviously, parallel parking this thing isn’t an issue. This particular model had pure carbon spherical wheels, each wheel containing 60 atoms. The nano car had no motor and was pulled to provide functionality, much like a car in idle.

But recently, Rice University has developed a nano car with an engine. They attached a molecular drive shaft of sorts, developed by Ben L. Feringa at the University of Groningen, that sort of bumps the car along. It works much like a paddleboat does in water. Put that paddleboat mechanism on land in a vehicle and you have a simple engine. Light causes the molecular engine to rotate in one direction. The original carbon tires had to be replaced with carbon, boron, and hydrogen molecules. The original tires drained energy from the molecular engine, thus halting it. Dr. James Tour, the lead researcher, is hoping that this fuels research to build better and more useful nano machines.

[tags]nano car, dr. james tour, nano technology[/tags]

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