How would nanobots consume objects?

I've been thinking about a cyberpunk universe where nanobots are a universal force capable of achieving many things, examples include:

• Biological and medical modifications of the human body
• Construct/reconstruction of machinery or infrastructure and general maintenance
• Combat, war, etc where nanobots are used to shutdown weapons and vehicles or simply consume attackers

These examples are fairly extreme and probably wouldn't be frequent in the universe but I'm interested in the physics of nanobot consumption. Say a particular species of nanobot is developed. How would it 'consume' objects and what would it do with the matter after if consumed it?

I'm interested specifically in the functionality of the nanobot and any side affects that functionality might have. An example of a silly non-realistic answer might be: It uses a little pacman mouth to devour atoms....

posted about 10 years ago

sydan‭

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