Biomimetics or biomimicry is the imitation of
the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems. The
terms biomimetics and biomimicry come from Ancint Greek:
βίος (bios), life, and μίμησις (mīmēsis),
imitation, from μιμεῖσθαι (mīmeisthai), to imitate, from μῖμος (mimos),
actor. A closely related field is bionics.
Living organisms have evolved well-adapted structures and materials over
geological time through natural selection. Biomimetics has given rise to
new technologies inspired by biological solutions at macro and nanoscales. Humans have
looked at nature for answers to problems throughout our existence. Nature has
solved engineering problems such as self-healing abilities, environmental
exposure tolerance and resistance, hydrophobicity,
self-assembly, and harnessing solar energy.
Possible and actual applications
Biomimetics could in principle be applied in many fields.
Because of the complexity of biological systems, the number of features that
might be imitated is large. Some examples of biomimetic applications at various
stages of development from prototypes to technologies that might become
commercially usable .
History
One of the early examples of biomimicry was the study of
birds to enable human flight. Although never successful in creating a
"flying machine", Leonardo
da Vinci (1452–1519) was a keen observer of the anatomy and flight of
birds, and made numerous notes and sketches on his observations as well as
sketches of "flying machines". The Wright
Brothers, who succeeded in flying the first heavier-than-air aircraft in
1903, derived inspiration from observations of pigeons in flight.
Biomimetics was coined by the American biophysicist
and polymath
Otto
Schmitt during the 1950s. It was during his doctoral research that he
developed the Schmitt trigger by studying the nerves in squid,
attempting to engineer a device that replicated the biological system of nerve
propagation. He continued to focus on devices that mimic natural systems
and by 1957 he had perceived a converse to the standard view of biophysics at
that time, a view he would come to call biomimetics.
Biophysics is not so much a subject matter as it is a point
of view. It is an approach to problems of biological science utilizing the
theory and technology of the physical sciences. Conversely, biophysics is also
a biologist's approach to problems of physical science and engineering,
although this aspect has largely been neglected.
—Otto Herbert Schmitt, In Appreciation, A Lifetime
of Connections: Otto Herbert Schmitt, 1913 - 1998
A similar term, Bionics
was coined by Jack Steele in 1960 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
in Dayton, Ohio where Otto Schmitt also worked. Steele defined bionics as
"the science of systems which have some function copied from nature, or
which represent characteristics of natural systems or their analogues".[2][21]
During a later meeting in 1963 Schmitt stated,
Let us consider what bionics has come to mean operationally
and what it or some word like it (I prefer biomimetics) ought to mean in order
to make good use of the technical skills of scientists specializing, or rather,
I should say, despecializing into this area of research
—Otto Herbert Schmitt, In Appreciation, A Lifetime
of Connections: Otto Herbert Schmitt, 1913 - 1998
In 1969 the term biomimetics was used by Schmitt to title
one of his papers, and by 1974 it had found its way into Webster's Dictionary, bionics entered the same
dictionary earlier in 1960 as "a science concerned with the application of
data about the functioning of biological systems to the solution of engineering
problems". Bionic took on a different connotation when Martin
Caidin referenced Jack Steele and his work in the novel Cyborg which
later resulted in the 1974 television series The Six Million Dollar Man and
its spin-offs. The term bionic then became associated with "the use of
electronically operated artificial body parts" and "having ordinary human
powers increased by or as if by the aid of such devices". Because the term
bionic took on the implication of supernatural strength, the scientific
community in English speaking countries largely abandoned it.
The term biomimicry appeared as early as 1982.
Biomimicry was popularized by scientist and author Janine
Benyus in her 1997 book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.
Biomimicry is defined in the book as a "new science that studies nature's
models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes
to solve human problems". Benyus suggests looking to Nature as a
"Model, Measure, and Mentor" and emphasizes sustainability as an
objective of biomimicry.
Nanobiomimetics or Nanobiomimicry
Fabrication
Biomorphic mineralization is a technique that produces
materials with morphologies and structures resembling those of natural living
organisms by using bio-structures as templates for mineralization. Compared to
other methods of material production, biomorphic mineralization is facile,
environmentally benign and economic. Biomorphic mineralization makes efficient
use of natural and abundant materials such as calcium, iron, carbon,
phosphorus, and silicon with the capability of turning biomass wastes into
useful materials. Templates derived from biological nanoparticles such as DNA, viruses, bacteria,
and peptides can transform unordered inorganic nanoparticles into complex
inorganic nanostructures. Biologically derived nanostructures are typically
fabricated using either chemical or physical techniques. Typical chemical
fabrication techniques are plasma
spraying, plasma immersion ion implantation and deposition, sol–gel,
chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor
deposition, cold spraying and self-assembly.
Physical modification techniques include laser etching, shot blasting, physical
plating, and physical evaporation and deposition. Methods of fabrication with
high throughput, minimal environmental damage, and low costs are highly sought
after.
Biomedicine
Mimicking the diving behavior of animals, researchers have
recently discovered that humans have a similar capacity to lower brain
temperature and suppress metabolism for neuroprotection. This has now opened a
real possibility of devising means for humans to sustain this state, not unlike
the elusive and enigmatic feat of animal hibernation, e.g., lemurs (primates)
and bears. This would have profound biomedical implications for healthcare and
for treating an unmatched range and diversity of serious life-threatening
clinical conditions, and in a fully personalized way, things like stroke,
blood-loss, burns, cancer, chronic obesity, epileptic seizures, etc. An
experimental trial, recently conducted in Sweden seemingly resulted in a
sustainable variant of this state in a human breath-hold diver.
Nanowires, nanotubes, and quantum dots
A virus
is a nonliving particle ranging from the size of 20 to 300 nm capsules
containing genetic material used to infect its host. The outer layer of viruses
are remarkably robust and capable of withstanding temperatures as high as
60 °C and stay stable in a wide range of pH range of 2-10. Viral
capsids can be used to create several nano device components such as nanowires,
nanotubes, and quantum dots. Tubular virus particles such as the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) can be used as
templates to create nanofibers and nanotubes since both the inner and outer
layers of the virus are charged surfaces and can induce nucleation of crystal
growth. This was demonstrated though the production of platinum and gold nanotubes using
TMV as a template. Mineralized virus particles have been shown to withstand
various pH values by mineralizing the viruses with different materials such as
silicon, PbS, and CdS
and could therefore serve as a useful carriers of material. A spherical plant
virus called cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV)
has interesting expanding properties when exposed to environments of pH higher
than 6.5. Above this pH, 60 independent pores with diameters about 2 nm
begin to exchange substance with the environment. The structural transition of
the viral capsid can be utilized in Biomorphic
mineralization for selective uptake and deposition of minerals by
controlling the solution pH. Applications include using the viral cage to
produce uniformly shaped and sized quantum dot semiconductor
nanoparticles through a series of pH washes. This is an alternative to the apoferritin
cage technique currently used to synthesize uniform CdSe nanoparticles. Such
materials could also be used for targeted drug delivery since particles release
contents upon exposure to specific pH levels.
Display technology
Vibrant blue color of Morpho
butterfly due to structural coloration.
Morpho
butterfly wings contain microstructures that create its coloring effect through
structural coloration rather than pigmentation.
Incident light waves are reflected at specific wavelengths to create vibrant
colors due to multilayer interference, diffraction, thin film interference, and
scattering properties. The scales of these butterflies consist of
microstructures such as ridges, cross-ribs, ridge-lamellae, and microribs that
have been shown to be responsible for coloration. The structural color has been
simply explained as the interference due to alternating layers of cuticle and
air using a model of multilayer interference. The same principles
behind the coloration of soap bubbles apply to butterfly wings. The color of
butterfly wings is due to multiple instances of constructive interference from structures such
as this. The photonic microstructure of butterfly wings can be replicated
through biomorphic mineralization to yield similar properties. The photonic
microstructures can be replicated using metal oxides or metal alkoxides such as
titanium sulfate (TiSO4),
zirconium
oxide (ZrO2), and aluminium
oxide (Al2O3). An alternative method of vapor-phase
oxidation of SiH4 on the template surface was found to preserve delicate
structural features of the microstructure.
Additional examples
Researchers studied the termite's ability to maintain
virtually constant temperature and humidity in their termite mounds in Africa
despite outside temperatures that vary from 1.5 °C to 40 °C
(35 °F to 104 °F). Researchers initially scanned a termite mound and
created 3-D images of the mound structure, which revealed construction that can
influence human building design. The Eastgate Centre, a mid-rise office complex
in Harare, Zimbabwe, stays
cool without air conditioning and uses only 10% of the energy of a conventional
building its size.
Modeling echolocation in bats in darkness has led
to a cane for the visually impaired. Research at the University of Leeds, in the United Kingdom, led
to the UltraCane, a product formerly manufactured, marketed and sold by Sound
Foresight Ltd.
Janine Benyus refers in her books to spiders that create
web silk as strong as the Kevlar used in bulletproof
vests. Engineers could use such a material—if it had a long enough rate of
decay—for parachute lines, suspension bridge cables, artificial ligaments for
medicine, and other purposes.
Other research has proposed adhesive glue from mussels, solar
cells made like leaves, fabric that emulates shark skin,
harvesting water from fog like a beetle, and more. Nature’s 100 Best is a compilation of the
top hundred different innovations of animals, plants, and other organisms that
have been researched and studied by the Biomimicry Institute.
A display technology based on the reflective properties of
certain morpho butterflies
was commercialized by Qualcomm in 2007. The technology uses Interferometric Modulation to
reflect light so only the desired color is visible in each individual pixel of
the display.
Biomimicry may also provide design methodologies and
techniques to optimize engineering products and systems. An example is the
re-derivation of Murray's law, which in conventional form determined
the optimum diameter of blood vessels, to provide simple equations for the pipe
or tube diameter which gives a minimum mass engineering system.
In structural engineering, the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (EPFL)
has incorporated biomimetic characteristics in an adaptive deployable
"tensegrity" bridge. The bridge can carry out self-diagnosis and
self-repair.
The extremely tough and mechanically versatile insect
cuticle, inspired the scientists from the Wyss Institute for
Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, who developed the Shrilk family of
biomimetic plastics, based in the components and design of the insect skin.
The Bombardier beetle's powerful repellent spray
inspired a Swedish company to develop a "micro mist" spray
technology, which is claimed to have a low carbon impact (compared to aerosol
sprays). The beetle mixes chemicals and releases its spray via a steerable
nozzle at the end of its abdomen, stinging and confusing the victim.
Holistic planned grazing, using fencing and/or herders, seeks to
restore grasslands
by carefully planning movements of large herds
of livestock to mimic the vast herds found in nature where grazing animals
are kept concentrated by pack predators and must move on after eating,
trampling, and manuring an area, returning only after it has fully recovered.
Developed by Allan Savory, this method of biomimetic grazing holds
tremendous potential in building soil, increasing biodiversity, reversing
desertification, and mitigating global warming, similar to what occurred during
the past 40 million years as the expansion of grass-grazer ecosystems built
deep grassland
soils, sequestering carbon and cooling the planet.
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