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Page 4 of 4 Hard work and luck Biologists and engineers work meticulous when searching for nature’s secrets and that is also necessary as the clever things are often hidden in the detail. Often biologists stumble over potentially commercial mechanisms, while investigating something completely different. One such product is Lotusan paint based on the Lotus-effect. The Lotus-effect is the name given to the phenomena, we can observe for instance on the leaves of the water lily, which even though they are horizontally positioned, rarely are dirty on the surface. Exactly how the water lily remains clean requires a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to see. William Barthlott discovered the Lotus-effect by a coincidence. During a 20 year long systematic investigation of more than 10.000 leaf surfaces, he began to notice that some leaves stayed cleaner than others. SEM observations gave the answer to this riddle. The leaves that kept clean had a rugged surface which was covered with tiny hooks. This specialised structure ensures that water cannot easily attach to the surface and instead forms small droplets, which flows off the leaf easily. Dirt particles adhere to the droplets while they flow off the leaf and thus it remains clean. It is the same property that paint should have. An important part of the biomimetic process is the identification of the mechanism in nature that is worth imitating. With Velcro, where de Mestral played the dual role of both biologist and engineer, it was the attachment mechanism that was worth imitating. A long list of other properties of the seeds where in this connection not interesting. Benefits to biology The study of nature also benefits from the biomimetic approach. Engineers can only imitate natural mechanism and processes if these are understood in detail. This gives better funding to fundamental biological research. However, this is not the only advantage. Commercial application value ensures that simulations and modelling are conducted, which can be used to test biological questions as well. Simulations make it possible to isolate and test specific parameters, which usually cannot be done in biology due to the high complexity of organisms.
Biomimetic is not so much about general inspiration from nature, which mankind has always used in technological and cultural contexts, as it is about critically assessing where the application potential exist. Biomimetics build bridges not only between scientific disciplines, but also between basic research and industry. It is yet too early to call biomimetics a mature scientific too, but we have come a long way since Leonardo da Vinci in 1488 presented his nature inspired design of airplane wings based on the wings of the bat.
Modified and translated from: Kiil, L. & Hesselberg, T. 2004. Naturen kræver tværfaglighed. Ingeniøren 35: 24-25.
Further reading: Armour, R. H., Paskins, K.E., Bowyer, A., Vincent, J. F. V., Megill, W. M. (2007). Jumping robots: a biomimetic solution to locomotion across rough terrain. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics 2: 65-82. Hesselberg, T. (2007). Biomimetics and the case of the remarkable ragworms. Naturwissenschaften. 94: 613-621. Vincent, J. F. V., Bogatyreva, O. A.,Bogatyrev, N. R. (2006). Biomimetics - its practice and theory. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 3: 471-482.
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