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Molecular Machines based on Macrocyclic Receptors: Switches and Motors
Published in Satish Kumar, Priya Ranjan Sahoo, Violet Rajeshwari Macwan, Jaspreet Kaur, Mukesh, Rachana Sahney, Macrocyclic Receptors for Environmental and Biosensing Applications, 2022
Satish Kumar, Priya Ranjan Sahoo, Violet Rajeshwari Macwan, Jaspreet Kaur, Mukesh, Rachana Sahney
Synthetic molecular motors depend on tapping random thermal fluctuations using a shaft mechanism to obtain directional motion. Maxwell’s demon (Maxwell 1871; Shenker 2004) Smoluchowski’s trapdoor (Smoluchowski 1912) and Feynman’s ratchet-and-pawl (Feynman and Vemon 1963) are a few of some experiments where potential ways for the generation of temperature or pressure gradients due to the genesis of the directional motion of Brownian particles have been conceptualized.
Molecular swarm robots: recent progress and future challenges
Published in Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, 2020
Arif Md. Rashedul Kabir, Daisuke Inoue, Akira Kakugo
By overcoming the hurdles related to the size and number of individual molecular robots prepared from biomolecular motors, DNA, and photosensitive molecules, swarming of molecular robots have been executed as an emergent function. The size of robots has been scaled down from centimeters to nanometers, and the number of robots participating in swarming has been successfully increased from one thousand to millions. Further optimization of the molecular robots is necessary for their applications to process, store, and transmit information which are subject to future work (Figure 6). Molecular robots with more complex structures and functions or entirely new frameworks are also being considered in various combinations. For example, apart from the many efforts based on DNA and related nanostructures, there have been reports on the fabrication of peptide-based nanomaterials for artificial systems [85–87]. Being motivated by the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry a great initiative has been undertaken recently for interdisciplinary collaboration to prepare hybrid molecular engine by utilizing synthetic molecular motors created based on supramolecular chemistry, DNA nanotechnology, and biological molecular motors as reported elsewhere [88]. Despite these ongoing progresses, there are several issues to address for the practical applications of molecular robots such as energy efficiency and reusability. From the perspective of sustainable development goals, it would be intriguing to take further initiatives in the future to tackle these challenges related to energy crisis [89]. On the other hand, short lifetime of the robots, particularly of the actuators, due to mechanical aging [90,91] and thermal denaturation pose big drawbacks to the molecular robots [92,93]. To make the molecular robots more sustainable further improvement is necessary to prevent the degradation or functional inactivation of the robots as inspired by using reactive oxygen species-free environment, and osmolytes, etc. [93–96]. In the long run, the molecular robots are expected to greatly contribute to the emergence of a new dimension in chemical synthesis, molecular manufacturing, and artificial intelligence based on fusion of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and informatics.