Acetylene sorting pump
An acetylene sorting pump (or ethyne sorting pump) is a proposed form of "Sorting rotors" to filter the potential resource molecule ethyne (aka acetylene) to ultra high purity for further processing.
Since sorting rotors or (something equivalent in function) are a core critical component of the proposed far term target of gem-gum factories, these where investigated in a bit more detail than other system parts.
Specifically an atomistic model of an acetylene sorting pump with the software Nanoengineer-1 was created. This was the biggest and most complex modeled molecular machine element designed so far (at time of writing 2021). It contains several structural crytolecules that are combined in a way that allows complex relative motions in a superlubricating way (no snapback).
(wiki-TODO: Check if the the original molecular data for this model can still be attained. Thre seems to be only one low resolution screen-capture left on the web.)
Possible critique points
Due to the integrated ethyne rods:
- possibly higher radiation damage sensitivity.
- parts possibly quite a bit more difficult to synthesize
Possible alternatives
Are there alternative solutions?
Without the rods pushing the molecules out of the pockets actively
it may be doable via thermal means. The issue here though is that:
(1) Big thermal differences should equate to big (macroscopic) spacial distances stretching out the design massively. Big distances allow for good thermal insulation and thermal energy recuperation.
(2) There are several purification stages to go through. So this long distance needs to be bone through several times back and forth.
Misc notes:
- The drive rods are quite interesting featuring a helical design.
- The worm drive is quite interesting. – (wiki-TODO: Find out if there was some reasoning behind gearing down an how much.)
- What about binding energy the specificity of the binding pocket (CO2 is somewhat similar in shape and size) – there probably where investigations
