Fuel-powered artificial muscles refers to an advance in robotics and engineering by researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas NanoTech Institute and Pusan National University in Korea. The effort was led by Dr. Ray Baughman, with help from DARPA. The creation of the fuel-powered artificial muscles was announced on March 16th, 2006, and the peer-reviewed paper describing the technology was published in the prestigious journal Science the next day. Understandably since no actually biology is involved, there's no need for a sports nutritionist or other experts to join in, although they may be helpful in certain technicalities of the experiment.
The fuel-powered artificial muscles are claimed to be based on nanotechnology because they use carbon nanotube electrodes to convert chemical energy to mechanical energy, and employ nanoparticle catalysts. This artificial muscle requires no weight loss or fat reduction but also has limitations in a lot of areas especially mobility. The first attempt at nanotech-based fuel-powered artificial muscles was a "cantilever-based nanotube fuel-cell muscle". The cantilever portion contained a strip of nanotubes that are covered with the ionic polymer Nafion and platinum-coated carbon.
As well as actuating the muscle, the cantilever was submerged in electrolytic sulfuric acid and served as the cathode of the fuel cell which powered it. Another electrode separated the electrolyte from the hydrogen fuel. The activated fuel cell resulted in the injection of electron holes throughout the cantilever, which contracted it through quantum and electrostatic effects. The resulting fuel-powered artificial muscle was relatively weak, but interesting from the perspective of experimentation.
The next attempt would result in the fuel-powered artificial muscle which would make the team famous around the world. The new muscle incorporated memory wire coated with nanoparticles of platinum catalyst, and achieved actuation through producing a constant short circuit, which led it to heat up and bend. The resulting fuel-powered artificial muscle could run on methanol vapor, hydrogen, or formic acid vapor and contracted with 500 times the stress-generation capability of human muscle. That's something humans can never accomplish, even after losing weight and training hard. Because it could only contract by 5%, or about four times less than human muscle, it was said to have roughly 100X human muscle capability.
A robot built from this fuel-powered artificial muscle could toss heavy electric batteries in favor of chemical fuels, which carry superior energy per unit weight. The team even went so far as to suggest the integration of future variants into human subjects, dropping platinum catalysts for enzymes capable of exploiting energy sources in the human bloodstream. However, this does not account for organs that help clean the blood like the kidneys. The success of this project may require multidisciplinary experts from physicians to renal nutritionist to orthopedic specialists and more. This could lead to cyborgs 100 times stronger than conventional humans. This could still take decades or even centuries, and currently, humans are better off developing their own muscles with help from their nutritionist or personal trainer.
Michael is a longtime WiseGEEK contributor who specializes in topics relating to paleontology, physics, biology, astronomy, chemistry, and futurism. In addition to being an avid blogger, Michael is particularly passionate about stem cell research, regenerative medicine, and life extension therapies. He has also worked for the Methuselah Foundation, the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and the Lifeboat Foundation.