The Whiskey Machine: Nanofactory-Based Replication of Fine Spirits and Other Alcohol-Based Beverages © 2016 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved. Abstract. Specialized nanofactories will be able to manufacture specific products or classes of products very efficiently and inexpensively. This paper is the first serious scaling study of a nanofactory designed for the manufacture of a specific food product, in this case high-value-per- liter alcoholic beverages. The analysis indicates that a 6-kg desktop appliance called the Fine Spirits Synthesizer, aka. the “Whiskey Machine,” consuming 300 W of power for all atomically precise mechanosynthesis operations, along with a commercially available 59-kg 900 W cryogenic refrigerator, could produce one 750 ml bottle per hour of any fine spirit beverage for which the molecular recipe is precisely known at a manufacturing cost of about $0.36 per bottle, assuming no reduction in the current $0.07/kWh cost for industrial electricity. The appliance’s carbon footprint is a minuscule 0.3 gm CO2 emitted per bottle, more than 1000 times smaller than the 460 gm CO2 per bottle carbon footprint of conventional distillery operations today. The same desktop appliance can intake a tiny physical sample of any fine spirit beverage and produce a complete molecular recipe for that product in ~17 minutes of run time, consuming <25 W of power, at negligible additional cost. Cite as: Robert A. Freitas Jr., “The Whiskey Machine: Nanofactory-Based Replication of Fine Spirits and Other Alcohol-Based Beverages,” IMM Report No. 47, May 2016; http://www.imm.org/Reports/rep047.pdf. 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 5 2. Chemical Composition of Whiskey ............................................................................ 9 2.1 Water and Ethanol ........................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Congeners ......................................................................................................................... 11 2.3 Particulates ....................................................................................................................... 19 2.3.1 Floaters and Sediments ............................................................................................... 19 2.3.2 Colloidal Particles and Chill-Filtering ........................................................................ 21 2.3.3 Radioactive Elements in Whiskey .............................................................................. 25 3. Traditional Fine Spirits Production ......................................................................... 27 4. Bulk Chemical Replication of Fine Spirits .............................................................. 35 4.1 Water ................................................................................................................................. 36 4.2 Ethanol .............................................................................................................................. 37 4.3 Congeners ......................................................................................................................... 39 4.4 Attempts to Chemically Replicate Whiskey .................................................................. 42 4.4.1 Limits of Human Taste Sensitivity to Fine Spirits Chemicals .................................... 42 4.4.2 Some Historical and Recent Whiskey Replication Efforts ......................................... 46 4.4.3 Quantified Raw Materials Cost of Chemical Replication ........................................... 50 4.4.4 Quantified Cost of Analysis for Chemical Replication .............................................. 59 4.4.5 Economic Feasibility of the Bulk Chemical Replication of Whiskey ........................ 65 5. NEW APPROACH: Nanofactory Replication of Fine Spirits .............................. 69 5.1 Generic Description of a Nanofactory ............................................................................ 71 5.1.1 Mechanosynthesis, Tools, and Nanoparts ................................................................... 71 5.1.2 Conceptual Description of a Nanofactory .................................................................. 75 5.2 Assay Unit ......................................................................................................................... 80 5.2.1 Chemohaptic Analysis ................................................................................................ 80 5.2.2 Structure Determination by AFM ............................................................................... 82 5.2.3 Element Typing of Atoms by AFM ............................................................................ 85 5.2.4 Element Typing of Functional Groups by AFM ......................................................... 87 5.2.5 Chemohaptic Analysis of More Difficult Cases ......................................................... 90 5.2.6 Minimum Size of Lab Module for Chemohaptic Analysis ......................................... 91 5.2.7 Size and Performance of the Assay Unit .................................................................... 94 5.2.8 Summary of Assay Unit .............................................................................................. 97 3 5.3 Synthesis Unit ................................................................................................................... 98 5.3.1 Mechanosynthesis of Ethanol and Congener Molecules ............................................ 98 5.3.2 Quantitative Production of Ethanol and Congeners .................................................. 104 5.3.3 Receptor-Based Purification of Ethanol and Water .................................................. 106 5.3.4 Non-Receptor Nanosieve-Based Purification of Water ............................................ 113 5.4 Description of the Fine Spirits Synthesizer Appliance ............................................... 115 5.4.1 Water Sourcing ......................................................................................................... 115 5.4.2 Ethanol Production ................................................................................................... 118 5.4.3 Congener Production ................................................................................................ 120 5.4.4 Quantitative Summary of the Appliance .................................................................. 122 6. Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 128 Appendix A. Contemporary Chemical Sensor Technologies ................................... 132 Appendix B. Molecular Structure of Top 31 Congeners in Rye Whiskey .............. 135 4 “Somewhere in the bowels of the cabinet a bartender went into action – a non-human bartender whose electronic soul mixed things not by jiggers but by atom counts, whose ratios were perfect every time, and who could not be matched by all the inspired artistry of anyone merely human.” – Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky (1950) 5 1. Introduction Specialized nanofactories will be able to manufacture specific products or classes of products very efficiently and inexpensively. This paper is the first serious scaling study of a nanofactory designed for the manufacture of a specific food product, in this case high-value-per-liter alcoholic beverages. The main purpose of this paper is to assess the technical opportunities for the inexpensive chemical analysis and manufacturing of fine spirits and other alcohol-based beverages using the equipment and techniques of atomically precise manufacturing. Of particular practical concern to commercial interests is the vulnerability of existing fine spirits business models to potentially disruptive new sources of atomically indistinguishable replicant products having significantly lower production cost and/or higher consumer desirability than traditionally produced products. The discussion here focuses on alcohol-based fine spirits, using whiskey1 as the exemplar beverage product. Other closely related product classes, including distilled spirits such as cognac, rum, brandy, gin, tequila, vodka, Japanese shochu, and Chinese baijiu, other beverages of intermediate alcohol content such as Japanese sake and liqueurs2 such as Bénédictine, Chartreuse, Grand Marnier, nalewkas, and American schnapps, and fermented and fortified beverages of low alcohol content such as champagne, beer, wine, sherry, and cider, technically could be synthesized by similar methods if product pricing and manufacturing costs permit, as could perfumes and fragrances which are often solvated in fine spirits such as brandy and cognac,3 but these applications are not discussed extensively in this document. Non-alcoholic beverages – such as coffee, tea, milk,4 juices, and carbonated sodas – could in principle be manufactured in the same manner but might not be justifiable purely economically unless the cost of energy drops a bit; these also are not discussed further in this document. While further investigation will be required, the analysis presented here makes a compelling case that the following capabilities may be enabled by the development of nanofactories and atomically precise manufacturing: (1) Quickly and inexpensively performing a quantitative assay of all organoleptic congeners