© 1999 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 1999

10.3 Pressure Storage and Ballasting

Storage of gases at high pressure is useful for nanorobots that must perform physiological gas transport functions¹⁴⁰⁰ (Chapters 22 and 26) or emergency reactive functions (Chapter 24), for devices which employ gases in onboard energy systems (Chapter 6), or for devices which require gaseous chemicals for onboard materials processing (Chapter 19). Pressurized gases are useful in buoyancy maintenance to facilitate device exfusion from the human body (Section 10.3.6), and possibly in the deactivation of toxic biochemicals or microbial pathogens (Table 10.3). Keeping a eutactic environment¹⁰ inside nanodevices requires the ability to draw and to maintain a vacuum (Section 10.3.5). This ability also may assist in metamorphic bumper (Section 5.4) and buoyancy control.

Last updated on 24 February 2003