{"id":154,"date":"2004-01-24T01:06:22","date_gmt":"2004-01-23T15:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=154"},"modified":"2007-02-07T20:06:41","modified_gmt":"2007-02-07T10:06:41","slug":"154","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=154","title":{"rendered":"nanotechnology meets the steam age"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Using photo-engraving technology used in making computer chips, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fantasyarts.net\/worlds-smallest-steam-engine.htm\">the latest in nano-machines is&#8230; a steam engine!<\/a> And apparently it works \ud83d\ude42 Someone once said to me that as science gets smaller you can forget about physics and chemistry &#8211; it&#8217;s all about mechanical engineering. I guess they were right!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fantasyarts.net\/worlds-smallest-steam-engine.htm\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"nano steam engine\" src=\"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/smalleststeamengine.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nImage: courtesy Sandia National Laboratories, SUMMiTTM Technologies, www.mems.sandia.gov<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The piston on this engine is only 5 microns across (about five one hundredths of the width of a human hair, or about half the size of a red blood cell). The engine was developed at Sandia Labs in the US by Dr. Jeff Sniegowski and his team.<\/p>\n<p>It seems that a tiny electrical charge is sufficient to boil a minute amount of very pure water, the steam from which pushes a tiny piston and then when it cools enough the piston returns to its starting position. This is not only a steam engine, but using a cross between Savoury and Newcomen&#8217;s technology from right at the start of the steam age. You would have thought that nanotechnology would have stuck with tiny electric motors to do mechanical work, so it&#8217;s either a case of doing it because they can, or because there might be applications uniquely suited to the application of steam power. Any thoughts on this?<\/p>\n<p>Cheers<\/p>\n<p>Jerry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using photo-engraving technology used in making computer chips, the latest in nano-machines is&#8230; a steam engine! And apparently it works \ud83d\ude42 Someone once said to me that as science gets smaller you can forget about physics and chemistry &#8211; it&#8217;s all about mechanical engineering. I guess they were right! Image: courtesy Sandia National Laboratories, SUMMiTTM [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,13,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-journal","category-steam","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}