Chapter E, Problem 104E

Nanotechnology, the field of building ultrasmall structures one atom at a time, has progressed in recent years. One potential application of nanotechnology is the construction of artificial cells. The simplest cells would probably mimic red blood cells, the body’s oxygen transporters. Nanocontainers, perhaps constructed of carbon, could be pumped full of oxygen and injected into a person’s bloodstream, If the person needed additional oxygen—due to a heart attack or for the purpose of space travel, for example—these containers could slowly release oxygen into the blood, allowing tissues that would otherwise die to remain alive. Suppose that the nanocontainers were cubic and had an edge length of 25 nanometers.
a. What is the volume of one nanocontainer? (Ignore the thickness of the nanocontainer’s wall.)
b. Suppose that each nanocontainer could contain pure oxygen pressurized to a density of 85g/L. How many grams of oxygen could be contained by each nanocontainer?
c. Air typically contains about 0.28 g of oxygen per liter. An average human inhales about 0.50 L of air per breath and takes about 20 breaths per minute. How many grams of oxygen does a human inhale per hour? (Assume two significant figures.)
d. What is the minimum number of nanocontainers that a person would need in his bloodstream to provide I hour’s worth of oxygen?
e. What is the minimum volume occupied by the number of nanocontainers calculated in part d? Is such a volume feasible, given that total blood volume in an adult is about 5 L?