Biomimicry by Mr. Sujit Sudhaman

1. BioMimicry
Sujit Sudhaman
A1-501

2. What is BioMimicry?
 Biomimicry
 The practice of developing sustainable
human technologies inspired by nature.
 Sometimes called Biomimetics or Bionics,
it's basically biologically inspired
engineering.
Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress above
all masters, are laboring in vain. - Leonardo Da Vinci

3. BI-O-MIM-IC-RY
(From the Greek bios, life, and mimesis, imitation)
 Nature as model. Biomimicry is a new science that
studies Nature’s models and then imitates or takes
inspiration from these designs and processes to solve
human problems.
 Nature as measure. Biomimicry uses an ecological
standard to judge “rightness” of our innovations.
 Nature as mentor. Biomimicry is a new way of
viewing and valuing Nature.

4. Why BioMimicry
 The core idea is that Nature, imaginative
by necessity, has already solved many of
the problems we are grappling with:
 energy,
 food production,
 climate control,
 non-toxic chemistry,
 transportation,
 packaging, and a whole lot more.

5. Examples

7. Architecture: Learning from termites how to create sustainable buildings:
Passive Climate Control in the Eastport Building, Harare Zimbabwe

8. •We generally think of termites as destroying buildings,
not helping them.
•But the Eastgate Building, an office complex in Harare
Zimbabwe, has an air conditioning system modeled on the
self-cooling mounds of termites that maintain the
temperature inside their nest within one degree, day and
night while the temperatures outside swing from 420 C to
30 C.
•The operation of the buildings represent 40% of all the
energy used by humanity, so learning how to design them
to be more sustainable is vitally important.
• Eastgate uses 90% less energy for ventilation than
conventional buildings its size and has already saved the
building owners over $3.5 million dollars in air conditioning

9. Transportation: How does
Nature travel quickly and
smoothly?
The Shinkansen Bullet
Train in Japan

10.  The Shinkkansen bullet Train of West Japan
Railway Company is the fastest train in the world,
traveling 200miles per hour.
 The problem? Noise.
 Air pressure changes produced large thunder
claps every time the train emerged from a tunnel,
causing residents ¼ mile away to complain.
 Eiji Nakatsu, the train’s chief engineer and an avid
bird watcher, asked himself “ Is there something in
Nature that travels quickly and smoothly between
two very different mediums?”
 Modeling the front end of the train after the beak of
the kingfisher, which dives from the air into bodies of

15.  Tsunami waves dozens of feet high when the reach the shore may be only
tens of centimeters high as they travel through the deep ocean.
 In order to reliably detect them and warn people before they reach the
land, sensitive pressure sensors must be located underneath the passing
waves in waters as deep as 6000 meters.
 The data must then be transmitted up to a buoy at the oceans surface,
where it is relayed to a satellite for distribution to an early warning center.
 Transmitting data through miles of water has proven difficult.
 Sound waves reverberate and destructively interfere with one another as
they travel, compromising the accuracy of information.
 Unless you are a dolphin.
 Dolphins are able to recognize the calls of specific individuals (signature
whistles) up to 25 kilometers away.
 By employing several frequencies in each transmission, dolphins have
found a way to cope with the sound scattering behavior of their high
frequency, rapid transmission, and still get their message reliably heard.
 Emulating dolphin’s unique frequency-modulating acoustics, a company
called EvoLogics has developed a high-performance underwater modem
for data transmission, which is currently employed in the tsunami early
warning system throughout the Indian Ocean.

19.  Studying the way human lungs work is inspiring new
technologies that remove carbon dioxide from sources like
flue stacks, preventing this greenhouse gas from reaching
our atmosphere and warming the planet.
 Our lungs have 3 major adaptations which give them their
carbon dioxide removal effectiveness:
 A super thin membrane, allowing CO2travel across
and out
 An enormous surface area (laid out it would be 70
times your body surface area)
 Specialized chemical translators (carbon anhydrase)
which allows CO2 to be removed from our
bloodstream thousands of times faster than possible
without it.
 In tests by a company called Carbozyme Inc., human-
made filters inspired by the way our lungs work removed
over 90% of the CO2 traveling through flue stacks.
 Other technologies based on the carbonic anhydrase
enzyme found in animals such as mollusks have
successfully transformed CO2 into limestone, which can

20. Gecko Tape
Ever wanted to walk up walls or across ceilings? Gecko Tape may be the
way to do it. The tape is a material covered with nanoscopic hairs that
mimic those found on the feet of gecko lizards. These millions of tiny,
flexible hairs exert van der Waals forces that provide a powerful adhesive
effect. Applications include underwater and space station uses, so
researchers from a number of institutions are working hard. They won't
be mass producing gecko tape sneakers and gloves any time soon, so
Spiderman wannabes will have to wait awhile longer, while hoping other
biomimetic researchers get around to inventing the necessary web-
throwers.
Lotus Effect Hydrophobia
They call it "superhydrophobicity," but it's really a biomimetic application
of what is known as the Lotus Effect. The surface of lotus leaves are
bumpy, and this causes water to bead as well as to pick up surface
contaminates in the process. The water rolls off, taking the contaminates
with it. Researchers have developed ways to chemically treat the surface
of plastics and metal to evoke the same effect. Applications are nearly
endless, and not just making windshield wipers and car wax jobs

21. Self-Healing Plastics
Consider the body's power to heal itself of scrapes and cuts. The
value of the same sort of process in light polymer composites that
can be used to produce things like aircraft fuselage becomes
obvious. The new composite materials being developed are called
self-healing plastics. They are made from hollow fibers filled with
epoxy resin that is released if the fibers suffer serious stresses and
cracks. This creates a 'scab' nearly as strong as the original
material. Such self-healing materials could be used to make
planes, cars and even spacecraft that will be lighter, more fuel
efficient, and safer.
Artificial Photosynthesis
We all learn about photosynthesis in school, the way that green
plants use chlorophyll to convert sunlight, water and carbon dioxide
into carbohydrates and oxygen. The quest to reproduce the
process technologically is called Artificial Photosynthesis, and is
envisioned as a means of using sunlight to split water into
hydrogen and oxygen for use as a clean fuel for vehicles as well as
a way to use excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The

24. BioMimicry 3.8: A Natural Progression for an
Evolutionary Leap
As practicing biomimics, we know that a sustainable world, 3.8 billion
years in the making, already exists. For 14 years, The Biomimicry Guild
and The Biomimicry Institute have been re-introducing the natural world
to the innovators and educators who are re-imagining ours.
With over 250 clients, we’ve helped redesign sneakers, carpets,
furniture, manufacturing processes, airplanes, and even entire cities, all
in nature’s sustainable image. We’ve reached millions through talks and
trained hundreds who now practice biomimicry in their professions.
We’ve created the world’s first online library of nature’s solutions, aptly
named AskNature. We’ve mobilized a network of K-12 teachers and
university professors to teach biomimicry to the next generation. It’s
been a fabulous ride.