title: Superfast motion of catalytic microjet engines at physiological temperature.
abstract: There is a great interest in reducing the toxicity of the fuel used to self-propel artificial nanomachines. Therefore, a method to increase the efficiency of the conversion of chemicals into mechanical energy is desired. Here, we employed temperature control to increase the efficiency of microjet engines while simultaneously reducing the amount of peroxide fuel needed. At physiological temperatures, i.e. 37 °C, only 0.25% H(2)O(2) is needed to propel the microjets at 140 μm s(-1), which corresponds to three body lengths per second. In addition, at 5% H(2)O(2), the microjets acquire superfast speeds, reaching 10 mm s(-1). The dynamics of motion is altered when the speed is increased; i.e., the motion deviates from linear to curvilinear trajectories. The observations are modeled empirically.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Integrative Nanosciences, IFW Dresden, Dresden, Germany. s.sanchez@ifw-dresden.de
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sanchez
authors.forename: Adithya N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Ananth
authors.forename: Vladimir M
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Fomin
authors.forename: Marlitt
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Viehrig
authors.forename: Oliver G
authors.initials: OG
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002384:Catalysis; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000187:drug effects; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000187:drug effects; D006861:Hydrogen Peroxide / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000494:pharmacology; D051379:Mice; D041681:NIH 3T3 Cells; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D006861:Hydrogen Peroxide