Nicolas Giuseppone, a professor at the University of Strasbourg, and his research team at the CNRS’s Charles-Sadron Institute have unveiled a brand-new synthetic molecular motor capable of storing mechanical energy.
Like conventional machines, their molecular counterparts are systems capable of absorbing energy—such as light—and then releasing it in a useful way, either instantly or later, through mechanical work. The living world is teeming with thousands of these molecular motors that cut, move, and synthesize biological components. One of the most characteristic examples of this cellular mechanics is ATP synthase: a gigantic rotary enzyme that very efficiently produces the ATP molecule, the energy source that all living organisms need to survive.
The challenge for scientists lies in their ability to mimic this highly complex mechanism using small synthetic molecules. This is the arena for scientists working in the field of molecular mechanics, whose goal is to create machines and engines on the scale of a single molecule—a field of research that came into the spotlight in 2016 when Jean-Pierre Sauvage was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Nicolas Giuseppone, a professor at the University of Strasbourg, and his research team at the CNRS’s Charles-Sadron Institute have unveiled a brand-new synthetic molecular motor that resembles a string-wound spinning top. The strength of this new system lies in its ability to perform a series of cycles that allow it to store mechanical energy and release it reversibly in the form of a chemical transformation. This research was published on May 23, 2022, in the scientific journal *Journal of the American Chemical Society* (JACS).
By looping two oligomer chains around a light-activated rotary motor measuring just 1 nm, the researchers demonstrated that this motor could wind the polymer chains and that the mechanical energy stored in these twists allowed the motor to then rotate in the opposite direction, carrying out a high-energy chemical transformation to return to its initial state, thereby creating cycles of winding and unwinding. The operating principle of this motorized molecular device is similar to that of the macroscopic “string-wound spinning top” commonly played with by children.
This simple and innovative system demonstrates how these motors can be used to store a large amount of mechanical energy—for example, from a light source—and then release it in a useful way, such as to enable a high-energy chemical reaction.
Light–driven molecular whirligig | Chuan Gao, Andreas Vargas Jentzsch, Emilie Moulin and Nicolas Giuseppone
DOI : 10.1021/jacs.2c02547
DONATIONS
MAKE A DONATION
