Research Stories

by Adelheid Fischer

Consumer products often are manufactured in quantities numbering in the millions. From their manufacturing to their disposal, products can have enormous downsides for the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soils we cultivate.

Biomimicry is a promising area of study that can help designers and engineers to create innovative solutions that will minimize the environmental impact of new products. In the 2008-2009 academic year, ASU's InnovationSpace faculty will team up with the Montana-based Biomimicry Institute and ASU biologists to introduce students to this exciting new methodology for sustainable product innovation. The year of biomimicry-related activities also includes a public lecture by Janine Benyus on Feb. 10, 2009. One of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment for 2007, Benyus galvanized popular interest in biomimicry with her book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.

"Biomimicry is looking to the materials, processes and functions of nature for clues to solving design and engineering problems," says InnovationSpace project leader Prasad Boradkar. "The nonhuman world provides students with a limitless–and largely untapped–reservoir for inspiration. At the same time, it will help them develop more sustainable solutions to the problems they're studying."

Biomimicry already has been used by companies around the world to guide the design and function of a wide range of products. The Australian company Pax Scientific, for example, manufactures fans that feature museum-quality design–and top engineering performance. The machines are 50 percent more energy efficient and 75 percent quieter than competing products in the marketplace. Their inspiration: the whorled pattern of a nautilus shell.

After studying the shape and skeletal structure of the boxfish, a common coral reef resident, engineers at Daimler Chrysler designed an aerodynamic automobile whose weight could be trimmed by as much as thirty percent without sacrificing performance. The car zooms from 0 to 60 mph in 7.9 seconds.

Mimicking the surface structure of lotus leaves, one of the most water-repellant plants on Earth, manufacturers have developed a line of fabrics, paint and glass that are virtually self-cleaning.

"Biomimicry will open our students' eyes to the potential for innovation in the everyday world that surrounds them," Boradkar says. "As Dieter Gurtler, one of Daimler Chrysler's top engineers, puts it: ‘By looking at nature, you come up with ideas you could never have thought of on your own.'"

The InnovationSpace biomimicry initiative is supported by grants from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance and ASU's Pathways to Entrepreneurship program. For more information, visit InnovationSpace.