Force Capability of Artificial Molecular Motors
upstart writes:
Single-molecule experiments reveal force capability of artificial molecular motors:
National University of Singapore physicists have shown that a single man-made molecular motor can exhibit a force similar to naturally occurring ones that power human muscles. Their results are published in Nanoscale.
Molecular motors are a class of machines with nanoscale dimensions that are essential agents of movement in living organisms. They harness various energy sources within the body to generate mechanical motion. A key characteristic is the force generated by a single motor during its self-propelled motion. This force generation capability allows the molecular motor to deliver mechanical work and is a measure of its energy conversion efficiency, which influences its use in potential applications.
[...] The research team successfully applied their method to an autonomous DNA molecular motor (previously developed by Prof. Wang's lab). This bipedal molecular motor is able to "walk" consecutively on its own with a stride length of about 16 nm between each step, providing a maximum force output of around 2 to 3 pN. This measured force output is at a level which is near to naturally occurring molecular motors powering human muscles, indicating a reasonably efficient conversion of chemical energy to mechanical motion.
Prof. Wang said, "This study paves the way for the development of applications associated with translational artificial molecular motors which require the generation of forces. Examples include molecular robots and biomimicking artificial muscles. Separately, the single-molecule method established in this work is applicable to force measurement of many other artificial molecular motors with soft tracks."
Journal Reference:
Xinpeng Hu, Xiaodan Zhao, Iong Ying Loh, et al. Single-molecule mechanical study of an autonomous artificial translational molecular motor beyond bridge-burning design, Nanoscale (DOI: 10.1039/D1NR02296B)
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