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

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

5.3.4 Engulf Formations

Flexible nanomachines may adopt special physical configurations optimally suited for the defense of the human body. Cytocidal mechanisms are discussed in Section 10.4, but consider here a metamorphic spherical nanorobot of radius r_s which reshapes itself into a thin disk of equal volume, thickness h_d, and radius r_d = (4 r_s³ / 3 h_d)^1/2. This accomplished, the nanodevice next folds itself into a hollow ball, enclosing a spherical cavity of radius r = r_d / 2. Areal extensibility e_area required to complete the first transformation, the principal source of surface stretching, is given by Eqn. 5.3.

Thus a spherical nanorobot 4 microns in diameter (r_s = 2 microns), after first flattening itself into a pancake that is h_d ~ 0.1 micron thick with e_area ~ 12.00(1200%), can then curl into a hollow ball and completely surround a spherical biomass ~8 microns in diameter. This is large enough to engulf virus particles, most known bacteria, most in vivo nanodevices, and most of the formed elements in human blood including platelets, erythrocytes, and lymphocytes.

Last updated on 18 February 2003