Nanodragster Brings Future at a Fast Pace
Small, eco-friendly cars are very hip in today’s world. We’re betting everyone would want to get their hands on a “hot rod” that’s 50,000 times smaller than a human hair and made of molecules. The so-called “nanodragster” is pushed along by heat or an electric field, which obviously puts it under the “alternative fuels” category. But this ride ain’t for commuting, as Livescience explains: “We made a new version of a nanocar that looks like a dragster,” said James Tour, a chemist at Rice University involved with the research. “It has smaller front wheels on a shorter axle and bigger back wheels on a longer axle.”
Now we’re going to try and throw a lot of science-talk your way, but won’t blind you with it. The organic hot rod’s front wheels are built from a not-so-sticky compound called p-carborane. Groups of spherical molecules called buckyballs made of 60 carbon atoms serve as the “vehicle’s” rear wheels. These molecules glide across a “dragstrip” made of a superfine gold layer. A pair of aligned hydrocarbon molecules called phenylene-ethynylene compose the ride’s chassis.
The tiny hot rod also performs tricks – “Because the front wheels don’t stick to the surface as strongly, they’re more prone to lift up, so [the nanodragster] does seem to pop a wheelie at times,” according to Tour. Tour and the other scientists working on these nano vehicles hope this wee-technology can be used to construct devices such as electronics atom-by-atom.
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