In-solvent gem-gum technology

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Defining traits of technology level II
building method robotic control (machine phase)
building material very small moieties
building environment liquid or gas
Navigation
previous technology level I
products side products of technology level II
next technology level III

Overview

This Level is the most unknown yet.
The nature of the tooltips for T.Level III is pretty clear by now but not the one for T.Level II.

By definition we have reached technology level I here and have full robotic control. The task is to switch from block resolution APM to atomically resolution APM here. Needed are minimal molecular blocks as templating core tooltips with which stiff covalent structures can be built under solution. There are bio enzymes that do biomineralisation but it is doubtful that those will be used as they are.

To investigate:

  • How to find methods to create stuctures with as freely choosable geometries as possible ?
  • How to do mechanosynthesis for technology level III with the materials used in this level? e.g. how to mount DC10c onto a pyrite/silicate/... robotic system?
  • [Todo: will vacuum housing only suffice?]
  • preciseness: which biomineralisations can naturally or could artificially produce true non amorphous single crystals?
  • resolution: biomineralisation seems to lack atomic resolution (existence silica deposition vesicles SDV's indicate that) in-how-far can the templating core be used to introduce it?
  • in case of loose hydrated silicate crystals - are they still stiff enough?

product stability

Concentration should be well below levels where crystallization starts autonomously from over-saturation. Concentration should be well above levels where the crystal dissolves. Diffusion from and to the crystals surface must be close to nil at least in a certain concentration regime. There must be a hysteresis with a not too small bistable regime. (glass does not significantly dissolve in pure water) This must be true for all crystal planes steps and nucleation sites. (nucleation site protection?) Nucleation should only be mediated by the templating core.

vacuum

If it turns out that gas tight seals are hardly or impossible to create in technology level I (due to e.g. hydrogen adsorption in crevices or too big structural holes) This technology level must provide them for the next step to technology level III.

Surface passivation

  • What about surface passivation ?
  • could terminating OH groups of adjacent contacting, sliding or pressed together surfaces fuse together under H2O generation ?
  • OH groups are angled and thus have one rotational degree of freedom -> how does this influence surface-surface friction ?

Biomineralisation

Biomineralisation is the natural place to learn from. But the current research direction is focussed too much on the artiricial recreation of bulk hirachically structured polypeptide mineral composite biomaterials instead of the (simpler) core synthesis process which is all thats needed for technology level II. Learning from biology is not blatantly copying it. Remember with rising technology levels we want to get away from biology to gain the benefits of superlubrication, superior material properties and most importantly systematic extensibility.

The idea is to copy just the crystal formation templating core configuration (not the whole polypeptides whose shapes are mainly responsible for vague site specivity) and guide it robotically by means of technology level I. Usage of partial machine phase at the tips (imagine randomly chattering teeth on a robot tip) could be allowed and may be beneficial or may not.

List of some Minerals of interest:

  • Silicates
  • Pyrite
  • Magnetide
  • Hydroxyappatite
  • ...

Some information about Silicate systems: [1] [2]