The Speculist

Non Nano News

One of the "Drexlerian fantasies" that we who dwell in our parent's basements hold dear is the "nanofactory."

The nanofactory is imagined as an appliance, maybe as small as a Mr. Coffee, maybe as big as a refrigerator, that manufactures whatever is desired from individual molecules up. This has been called the ultimate technology. With the development of the nanofactory the only cost of material possessions would be the energy it takes to manufacture them and the information to build it (the cost of raw matter would be negligible). Presumably you would shop online, buy a design, download it, and then have your home factory make it for you. The energy cost would be reflected on your electric bill.

There are new developments constantly in the nanotech industry (here's a good source for staying current). But even we optimists understand that we are presently a long way from developing self-replicating nanoassemblers – the basic component of a nanofactory.

Personally I see no reason why automatic home factories need wait for the development of exotic nanotech.

Imagine a computer driven factory that uses raw materials (shredded plastic, wood pulp, various metals, silicon) to assemble whatever product you require using downloaded designs. The cost of the raw materials would be small. In fact, much of our trash could be recycled for these materials. The value of material possessions would be reduced to the cost of the raw materials, electricity, and the information to assemble it. In fact, you would have nearly all of the benefits of a nanofactory and few of the dangers. There would be no possibility of gray goo or homemade plagues with such a factory.

The technology I'm talking about is not decades away. Commercial forms of this technology are being tested now. On the large scale Engineer Behrokh Khoshnevis is perfecting his “Contour Crafting” process that will automatically construct an entire home directly from a computer plan.

Degussa AG, one of the world’s largest manufacturers and suppliers of construction materials, will collaborate in the development of a USC computer-controlled system designed to automatically “print out” full-size houses in hours…

Khoshnevis believes his system will be able to construct a full-size, 2,000- square-foot house with utilities embedded in 24 hours. He now has a working machine that can build full-scale walls and is hoping to actually construct his first house in early 2005.

Contour Crafting uses crane- or gantry-mounted nozzles, from which building material - concrete, in the prototype now operating in his laboratory - comes out at a constant rate.

Moveable trowels surrounding the nozzle mold the concrete into the desired shape, as the nozzle moves over the work…

Khoshnevis is now perfecting a system to mix such materials continuously in industrial quantities right at the Contour Crafting nozzle, “the way a spider makes silk to build a web."

-Via Futurepundit.

NewScientist has more:

Khoshnevis's prototype robot hangs from a movable overhead gantry, like the cranes at ship container depots. Khoshnevis speculates that they could also be ground-based, running along rails and able to build several houses at one time. But it would be more difficult to create autonomous wheeled robots that have sufficient accuracy and precision.

The first house will be built in 2005. If the technology is successful the robot could enable new designs that cannot be built using conventional methods, for example involving complex curving walls.

On the small scale, engineers at the University of California in Berkeley are developing technology to "print" in one process an entire electronic application - external plastic case and moving parts included.

The trick is to print layer upon layer of conducting and semiconducting polymers in such a way that the circuitry the device requires is built up as part of the bodywork.

When the technique is perfected, devices such as light bulbs, radios, remote controls, mobile phones and toys will be spat out as individual fully functional systems without expensive and labour-intensive production on an assembly line.

Three-dimensional printers are already valuable tools for making prototypes of newly designed products. They deposit layers made from droplets of smart polymers, which gradually build up into 3D shapes. Such printing techniques have become so sophisticated it is now possible to print working prototypes with mechanical parts that move as they would in the final product.

But Berkeley's crucial addition to this art is to allow the electronics to be included in the printed device, rather than being added at great cost later on.

The first automatic factory in the home will probably be simple - it could assemble all-plastic goods. This would be sufficient for many toys and kitchen utensils. Similar devices have been in use commercially for some time now.

Three-dimensional printers are already valuable tools for making prototypes of newly designed products. They deposit layers made from droplets of smart polymers, which gradually build up into 3D shapes. Such printing techniques have become so sophisticated it is now possible to print working prototypes with mechanical parts that move as they would in the final product.

Automatic assemblers that could use different materials would follow. Assemblers for electronics would come later.

This development will bring vast new wealth to consumers and will present the patent holders for commodity goods with the same peer-to-peer challenges that the RIAA has faced.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at March 31, 2004 10:38 PM | TrackBack