the world's best minds in r&d - national magazine …€¦ · the world's best minds...

30 • Corporate Knights • Summer 2012

THE WORLD'S BEST MINDS IN R&D

Biomimicry is no longer just a curiosity. More businesses are embracing lessons that the

natural world has perfected.

By Yasmin Ghahremani

PeacockLow-energy e-readers that copy how colours are created on peacock feathers

SilkmothMimicking antennae to detect explosives

KingfisherHas beak that inspired design of high-speed train

Mantus ShrimpHard club-like arm leads to stronger body armour

Summe r 2012 • Corporate Knights • 31

Humpback Whale FlippersQuieter, more efficient blades for wind turbines

3.8 BillionYears of trial, error and evolutionary revisions

Thorny Devil LizardGroovy spikes collect water out of thin air

Morpho ButterflyWings inspire displays that create colour by diffracting and scattering light

welve years ago, carpet-tile maker Interface hit it big with biomimicry, and it’s been full steam ahead ever

since. Having read biologist and author Janine Benyus’ ideas about the natural world’s ability to inspire sustainable innovation, Interface leaders sent a team into the forest to see what nature could teach them about carpet. What they found was that diverse elements – leaves, rocks, flowers – are distributed in random patterns. “We were trying to make everything exactly uniform,” says John Bradford, In-terface’s chief innovation officer. “This human thing is about control, whereas the natural thing is about liberation.”

The insight led to Entropy, a carpet whose design de-pends on tile variations. Tiles are made with multiple dye lots and can be set in any direction, significantly reducing production and installation waste. Entropy has become the best-selling carpet in the company’s history, and biomim-icry is now part of Interface’s DNA. “We use nature as the perfect model to make us better in all aspects, all the way down to the design of the inner workings of our business,” says Bradford.

T



nterface is on the leading edge of the biomimicry movement, but it’s

not alone. Hundreds of organizations are now actively pursuing biomimicry strategies, and even more are investi-gating the idea. Accolades – and more importantly, sales – are flowing for in-novations ranging from non-toxic adhe-sives that reference a mussel’s gripping mechanisms, to energy-saving display screens inspired by the light-reflecting properties of a butterfly wing. As the biomimicry concept matures into an established discipline, its pioneers are refining processes and expanding expec-tations about biomimicry’s applications.

Benyus coined the term biomimicry to describe how nature can provide in-spiration for solving complex problems

while leaving ecosystems intact. Her non-profit organization, Biomimicry 3.8, helps educate people about the store of ideas created through 3.8 billion years of life on earth, while her consulting firm, the Biomimicry Guild, advises companies on how to “biologize” the questions they ask. Find a natural anal-ogy to a design or technology issue and you’re halfway to that “Aha!” moment. Says Chris Allen, CEO of Biomimicry 3.8: “I think we’re going to see the expo-nential growth in the students that are in biomimicry programs around the world that want to start their own businesses.”

It’s certainly not a new idea, though. Jay Harman has been working on nature-inspired innovations since before any-one had even heard the term biomim-icry. A beach lover, he noticed decades ago that fragile seaweed withstood the tide by swirling with the ocean’s flow. It’s the same spiral shape that water makes when it circles a drain. Through years of scientific investigation, he gained a deep understanding of fluid

and air dynamics. “All movement, or turbulence, in the universe is designed around this whirlpool shape,” says Harman. “Humans try to make things in straight lines, and then use a lot of energy to overcome turbulence. But nature exploits turbulence.”

Eventually, his company, PAX Scientific, reverse engineered a whirlpool and came up with an algorithm it’s using to develop a host of applications. The most successful so far is a six-inch (15-cm) whirlpool-shaped water tank device that can mix up to 10 million gallons (38 million litres) of drinking water. It improves water qual-ity, distributes disinfectants and stabilizes temperature to prevent ice buildup in the cold. And it does so on 280 watts of energy, low-ering mixing costs by about 85 per cent. Some 300 municipalities across the U.S. are now using the mixer, with overseas sales growing. Harman has also used the whirlpool design to create energy-saving pumps, turbines and even boat hull designs.

Beyond product design innovation, biomimicry is about process improvement. Nature works with resources that are free and near-by, then puts back what it’s taken to be used again. Interface looked through this lens at its own system. “It was one that took oil from the

"Hundreds of organizations

are now actively pursuing

biomimicry strategies,

and even more are investigating

the idea."

HAGFISH SLIME The eel-like hagfish secretes a fibrous water-absorbing slime that is inspiring the creation of new lubricants and insulators.

PAX FLOWER-SHAPED IMPELLER Design mimics the structure of a lily to achieve maximum efficiency when moving fluids.

SOLAR POWER PLANT (Spain) Mirrors reflect sunlight back to a central collector, creating steam to generate electricity. Layout of the mirrors mimics design of the sunflower's core.

Sunflower florets follow spiral pattern found in many

places in nature, from galaxies to

sweat glands.

Photos: Above left, photo by Markel Redondo.

Bottom left, courtesy of PAX Scientific. Bottom left, courtesy of Jamie Miller.

I


ground, made it into carpet, allowed that carpet to be used for seven years until it went to the landfill and we were happy to get another sale,” says Brad-ford. “All we were doing was fouling our own nest.”

The firm got to work closing the loop. First it replaced toxic glue with a biomimetic fastener that uses gravity rather than chemicals to bond carpet tiles together. Then it devised a way to separate the carpet fibres from the backing, and began a program to recycle both elements at centres across North America. Latex, which comprises 9 per cent of the carpet, is all that’s left and the company aims to eliminate that by 2020.

As companies get hooked on biomimicry, they’re designing formal mechanisms to en-courage it. Architecture firm HOK has created a planning framework that includes 14 factors to ensure that a project’s design is informed by the local environment. In an orphanage plan called Project Haiti, for example, buildings are situated to exploit cooling trade winds. Inspired by the local Kapok tree, architects have created a sus-tainable blueprint. The basement serves as the building’s “roots” where water will be cleaned and stored and waste turned into biogas.

Above ground, a “skin” of wood and bam-boo will allow air to move through the building while shielding it from radiant heat, much like low emissivity plants and tree barks. And roof-top gardens will act as foliage, supporting a solar energy system. “Biomimicry is where sustainability

needs to go to get beyond generic building standards,” says Tom Knittel, vice-president at HOK. “They need to be truly place-based.”

Michael Pawlyn, the founder of Exploration Architecture, wants to go even further. The author of Biomimicry in Architecture is in-volved in an ambitious plan to turn coastal deserts into agricultural oases. The first pilot for the Sahara Forest Project will be completed this year in Doha, Qatar, using integrated technologies such as salt-water-cooled greenhouses, concentrated solar power, algae produc-tion and desert re-vegetation systems.

Heat produced by mirrors focusing the sun’s rays will drive a con-ventional desalination process as well as produce freshwater in the green-houses using evaporation and condensation. The biomimetic process is similar to the way certain beetles harvest freshwater in desert regions.

Evaporating seawater into the greenhouses will create cool, hu-mid growing conditions that allow a range of crops to grow with rad-ically less freshwater irrigation. Externally, evaporative structures will raise the humidity enough that hardier native plants can be cul-tivated for fodder, biomass and desert re-vegetation. Saltwater will be used in what will be the largest algae cultivation installation in the Middle East. There should still be plenty left over to restore natural reserves of groundwater that have been depleted through over-use.

The whole system is beyond sustainable – it’s restorative. “I find a lot of sustainability is really about mitigating negatives rather than optimizing positives,” says Pawlyn. “With biomimicry you get into a much more positive realm of ideas and language, which I think inspires people more than the sometimes mundane language of sustainability.”

The economic advantages of biomimicry still need some sell-ing. Up-front research time turns off many companies considering biomimicry projects. But proponents say any kind of innovation re-quires those costs. “If you're really looking for innovation then you're automatically going to incur more time, risk and barriers to market,” says Allen, of Biomimicry 3.8. “We are no different in that respect.”

As fossil fuel stores continue to decline, the problem may work itself out. “There are still vast subsidies going to fossil fuels,” says Pawlyn. “That just makes it more difficult to deliver schemes that look economically viable.”

When environmental and sociological costs are factored in, na-ture’s processes begin to look more like a bargain. K

SOLAR IVY Solar cells are laid out to imitate the way ivy grows on buildings to maximize exposure to the sun.

Left: Concept design of Solar Ivy on a home.

Below: Solar Ivy prototype up close. Cells can be any colour.

WHALEPOWER BLADES FOR WIND TURBINES Blade design mimics bumps found on humpback whale flippers. The bumps, or "tubercles", help the blades do a better job of capturing the wind and the energy in it.

"As companies get hooked on biomimicry, they're designing formal mechanisms to encourage it."

QUALCOMM'S MIRASOL DISPLAY ON TABLET

As with a butterfly wing, light passes through a clear layer, diffracts and reflects off a mirror-like backing to display vibrant colours. Approach requires little energy.

Photos: Above right, courtesy of Qualcomm. Above left, courtesy of Solar Ivy.

Bottom left, courtesy of WhalePower.


here are seven billion people on the planet, meaning there are now up

to 14 billion eyeballs capable of monitor-ing the state of our shared environment and the life-improving infrastructure – water, energy and communications – we have come to depend on.

These days, those eyes are more like-ly to be glued on iPhone, computer and television screens than on the natural or built environment around them, par-ticularly remote areas that populations tend to avoid – or forget about.

But just as technology is captur-ing our collective attention span, it is also watching our backs, and raising red

flags when natural systems and critical infrastructure face threats or are show-ing signs of stress.

Robots, some the result of original engineering and others inspired by na-ture, are snooping around our oceans and forests, crawling along hydro lines and gas pipelines, and even posing as bugs and birds as they sniff out chemi-cals in the air. Many are designed to op-erate autonomously on an inexhaustible supply of renewable energy.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Uni-versity refer to such machines as “data mules” for their ability to work tirelessly in challenging situations, “giving scien-

In our increasingly navel-gazing society, humans could use an extra set of eyes

to monitor the deteriorating world around us

Eye Spy, Robots Don’t LieBY TYLER HAMILTON

T

Wave GliderAutonomous exploration

of the sea

RoboBeeTiny, yes, but all the buzz

Photos: Above, courtesy of Liquid Robotics. Bottom left, courtesy of Ben Finio.


they each travelled 6,000 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean on a meander-ing journey from the shoreline of San Francisco to Hawaii. And they’re still moving. Two are on route to Japan and two to Australia, with plans to complete their 16,700-km voyage by early 2013.

The sensors on the robots will col-lect and wirelessly transmit an unprec-edented amount of detailed informa-tion about ocean conditions, including ocean temperature, wave height, weath-er conditions, water quality and chem-istry. These and others will shed light on the impacts of global climate change and pollution.

There are other approaches. Re-searchers at Michigan State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Essex in the Unit-ed Kingdom are each working on their own designs of battery-powered robots that mimic the movement of fish. Each is equipped with sensors that can de-tect oil slicks, measure water quality and do underwater environmental re-connaissance.

“Autonomously exploring and in-vestigating a harbour, the fish can work together to monitor and track down sources of pollution,” said Luke Spell-er, who leads a pan-European project called SHOAL that has several of the robots monitoring a Spanish port.

On land, there’s also no shortage of innovation taking place. Sensor-equipped robots, moving around on tracks and cables, are expected to be used

to track biodiversity, assess biochemical cycles and take note of unusual environ-mental changes in American forests as part of the ambitious $500-million Na-tional Ecological Observatory Network (NEON).

NEON, a project of the U.S. National Science Foundation, has the vision of being a continental-scale observatory that over 30 years will collect data con-cerning the impacts of climate change on natural resources. Development of the first two sites began in June – one in the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts, the other in Melrose, Florida.

Robotic eyes have also been devel-oped to keep watch over energy infra-structure. General Electric, for example, has designed robots that can climb up wind turbine towers (with no fear) and inspect the condition of blades and oth-er equipment.

The Electric Power Research Insti-tute (EPRI), a non-profit research orga-nization for the utility sector, has built a solar-powered robot that spends its days independently crawling kilometres of electricity transmission lines looking for equipment defects, wear and tear, signs of stress, and overgrown trees that have the potential to spark outages.

Andrew Phillips, director of trans-mission at the institute, said that using a robot in this way reduces risks to workers, uses less energy, and is up to 70 per cent less expensive than sending out a manned helicopter to perform in-air inspections.

Perhaps the most unique robots de-signed to keep tabs on the environment are RoboBees, developed by engineers at Harvard University. Inspired by bees, they have insect-like wings, an electron-ic nervous system that acts like a small brain, and sensors that simulate a bug’s eyes and antennae.

Roboticist Robert Wood, who is leading the RoboBees research, said the plan is to develop a colony of autono-mous robot bees for a number of appli-cations, including environmental explo-ration, weather and climate mapping, and traffic monitoring.

He said the decision to mimic bees was an easy one. “They are social in-sects. They bring about the notion of many working together towards some interesting end.” K

tists the capability to collect high fidel-ity data over large geographic regions and extended periods.”

Silicon Valley firm Liquid Robot-ics has taken that robot advantage to our oceans. The company makes a self-propelled, fully autonomous ma-rine research drone that scours the oceans collecting scientific data with solar-powered sensors. Called the Wave Glider, it is the first marine robot to use energy from ocean waves to propel itself without fuel.

“Most people have been trained to try to harness waves for electricity gen-eration, and that turns out to be really, really hard,” said James Gosling, chief software architect at Liquid Robotics. “But getting thrust? That’s worked out well for us.”

Each Wave Glider comes in two parts. The first floats on the wavy sur-face of the water and looks like a surf-board covered in solar panels. It is con-nected by a six-metre “umbilical” cord to a multi-winged device below called a glider.

The motion of the waves causes the board to bob up and down in the water – movement that is mimicked below by the glider. The wings and fin on the glid-er are designed in such a way that the up and down movement is translated into forward thrust. Navigation can be con-trolled remotely or pre-programmed into the robot.

As Gosling said, it works well – so well that four Wave Gliders captured a Guinness World Record in March when

Robotic fish Part of eco-monitoring project in Spain

Solar-powered transmission line inspector

Wind turbine crawler

WALL•E A sign of the future?

Photos: Above row left to right, courtesy of EPRI, General Electric, and Pixar.

Bottom, courtesy of Jindong Liu.


couraging more efficient use – and hence slower depletion – of natural resources.

In order to track progress toward those potential outcomes, Reaser is searching databases of patents and aca-demic papers, as well as U.S. National Institutes of Health and National Sci-ence Foundation grants, for mention of terms related to biomimicry. This technique is typical of other indices that track the spread of a technology (e.g., nanotechnology, cleantech). But there's always a danger that it's tracking the ap-plication of an idea to existing efforts, rather than new implementations of it.

"I think change is not taking place so much in the awareness of biomimicry as opposed to its actual use," says Reaser. "If you read our study you can see that companies are applying it, and more often – and entire companies are being formed to use it."

Many of the classic examples of companies implementing biomimicry are well known, including adhesives that stick like gecko feet and e-ink dis-plays that refract light like butterfly wings. But developments further up the research pipeline aren't nearly as visible.

Preliminary analyses of the most recent data in the Da Vinci Index have revealed, for example, the truly interna-tional diffusion of the concept of bio-mimicry. "You see large numbers of pa-

pers (published on the subject) in China, England, Germany, France, Japan, India and Brazil," says Reaser. Universities in China seem to be particularly enthusi-astic about the concept: an analysis of papers revealed that five of the leading universities publishing in this field were from the country.

Since the beginning of 2011, the Da Vinci Index has seen a particularly rap-id increase, from 800 to nearly 1,100 points. (The retroactively set baseline was 100 points in 2000, when 71 grants related to biomimicry were handed out compared to 260 in 2011.) A similar trend is evident in cleantech, accord-ing to Victor Cardona, a partner with law firm Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesita, which publishes an annual Clean Energy Patent Growth Index. In 2009, about 1,000 patents were pub-lished in areas like solar, wind and fuel cells. By 2011, that number had jumped to more than 2,400.

Cardona admits that indices like the ones created by his firm and by Reaser can't hope to capture all the activity in any given body of literature, but, "we're probably undercounting rather than over-counting," since both indices go through additional screening after the initial keyword search.

Sampling patents, in particular, has the power to measure which areas are the subject of the most research and development – where, in essence, com-panies are willing to put real money. In that way, such indices can be a "leading in-dicator of things to come," says Cardona.

One thing the Da Vinci Index indi-cates is that the application of biomim-icry has continued to expand despite the economic downturn. Other efforts to connect corporations and the envi-ronment, such as corporate social re-sponsibility initiatives, can sometimes be perceived as a drag on the bottom line and therefore disposable when bud-gets are constrained.

Biomimicry, on the other hand, with its focus on how biological sys-tems adapt in the face of constrained resources, can improve efficiency, open up new markets and lead to the creation of new products, says Reaser. And since it’s hard to find inspiration in nature if we’ve wrecked it, the rise of biomimicry also dovetails with the goals of conserva-tion organizations like the San Diego Zoo.

"The old model was very much busi-ness versus environment," says Reaser. "But biomimicry provides a true bridge between business and environment." K

oncepts from biomimicry and bio-inspiration – the use of nature as a

source of inspiration for new technolo-gies – have shown a 10-fold increase in their occurrence in papers, grants and patents since 2000. That's according to the latest edition of the Da Vinci Index, which tracks the spread of biomimicry through indicators that could presage the wider adoption of biomimetic tech-nologies and techniques in manufactur-ing and other industries.

The Da Vinci Index is named after artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, the 15th century Renaissance man. (He is considered by many to be the father of biomimicry because of his keen in-terest in studying lessons from nature, which greatly influenced his inven-tions.) The index was created a year and a half ago by Lynn Reaser, chief econo-mist at Point Loma Nazarene Univer-sity in San Diego, as a follow-up to re-search she conducted on the potential future economic impact of biomimicry-based technologies. Her work was com-missioned by the San Diego Zoo, which runs a bioinspiration lab. As part of its mission to bolster the real and appar-ent value of biodiversity, the zoo liter-ally rents out its collection of plants and animals to companies looking to nature to solve their problems.

In her original paper, “Global Bio-mimicry Efforts – An Economic Game Changer,” Reaser asserted that "in 15 years biomimicry could represent $300 billion annually of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 dollars." And that doesn't include the $50 billion she says bio-mimetic techniques could save us by en-

Da Vinci would approveNew index tracks the growth of innovation in biomimicry

BY CHRISTOPHER MIMS

"In her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous." - Leonardo da Vinci on Mother Nature

C

Drawings: Leonardo da Vinci

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