Bionics and Sustainable Design

Bioinspired innovation is a growing field and is often attributed to sustainable design outcomes. After reviewing existing literature in bionics, biomimetics, and biomimicry, a comparative analysis was used to compare and contrast these subdisciplines. This theoretical analysis aims to reveal differences between bioinspired design approaches to show that each is distinct and to position bioinspired design approaches along the sustainability spectrum. This research contributes to the conceptualization of sustainability within bioinspired innovation and advances nuanced perspectives for scholars and practitioners in this field.

Bionics is fundamentally based on the development of projects for engineering, design, architecture, and others, which are inspired by the characteristics of a biological model organism. Essentially, bionics is based on a transdisciplinary approach, where teams are composed of researchers trained in a variety of disciplines, aiming to find and adapt characteristics from nature into innovative solutions. One of the key steps in a bioinspired project is the comprehensive study and analysis of biological samples, aiming at the correct understanding of the desired features prior to their application. Among the most sought natural elements for a project to be based on, plants represent a large source of inspiration for bionic designs of structures and products due to their natural efficiency and high mechanical performance at the microscopical level, which reflects into their functional morphology. Therefore, examining their microstructure is crucial to adapt them into bioinspired solutions. In recent years, several new technologies for materials characterization have been developed, such as X-ray Microtomography (µCT) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA), allowing newer possibilities to visualize the fine structure of plants. Combining these technologies also allows that the plant material could be virtually investigated, simulating environmental conditions of interest, and revealing intrinsic properties of their internal organization. Conversely to the expected flow of a conventional methodology in bionics—from nature-to-project —besides contributing to the development of innovative designs, these technologies also play an important role in investigations in the plant sciences field. This chapter addresses how investigations in plant samples using those technologies for bionic purposes are reflecting on new pieces of knowledge regarding the biological material itself. An overview of the use of µCT and FEA in recent bionic research is presented, as well as how they are impacting new discoveries for plant anatomy and morphology. The techniques are described, highlighting their potential for biology and bionic studies, and literature case studies are shown. Finally, we present future directions that the potential new technologies have on connecting the gap between project sciences and biodiversity in a way both fields can benefit from them.

Eggs are nature's successful evolutionary design tricks, well designed to deliver multi-task biofunctional strategies for life's challenges. They appear in the vital scenario in the form of original and surprising bio-tech design solutions affected by the genetic and environmental constraints they are called to interact with. For these basic survival needs, the eggs must work very well: capturing the sperm of the male for a correct optimization of the fertilization processes, protection from physical and mechanical trauma, climatic mediation, and fine aeration of the internal larvae. These surprising embryo packagings are a sort of lifeboat laid down and often left alone by females in front of the intricate, complex, and highly wild food interweaving the planet's ecosystems. We found eggs in the reproductive cycles of many living species: fish, cephalopods, birds, and above all, individual insects. Butterfly eggs constitute a class of exciting and still little studied solutions, considered for possible bionic and biomimetic inspirations. Many Lepidoptera eggs generally have an external textured shell, the chorion, made up of waxed surface keratin, which maintains the correct humidity of the egg throughout the growth cycle. Keratin is a fibrous protein rich in sulfur amino acids, cysteine, and self-assemble into fiber bundles. It has the characteristic of a very tenacious mineralized fabric and is remarkably impermeable to water and atmospheric gases. Each egg is glued by the mother's butterfly to the support of branches or leaves of the nourishing plants by a gluey substance of chemical still largely unknown constitution, so adhesive that it is impossible to detach the eggs if not breaking them. In some butterfly species, like the Maniola and Lycaenidae family, the shell's structure has a spatial organization in the form of complex geodesic ribbed micro domes that resemble Buckminster Fuller's geodesic structures. Another exciting aspect of butterfly's eggs design concerns the micropyle and aeropyles layers system, which ensure the proper introduction of the male sperm, air, and oxygen needed to larva's growth. This study, conducted by the BionikonLab&FABNAT14 laboratory of Iglesias-SU Italy, considers the structural, morphological, and geometric aspects of some types of butterfly eggs that await internal ventilation. The purpose is to define a list of essential design problem-solving concepts that apply to creating food packaging, considering the crucial aspects of preserving freshness and commercial and nutritional qualities, reducing food waste, and the additional use of chemicals, antioxidants, and plastics packs.

Agrotoxics, pesticides, and other agricultural chemical inputs have long been used for pest control in crops and plantations around the world. As people have become aware of this problem of food with pesticides, the demand for vegetables and greens produced in gardens, with natural pest control, without the use of pesticides, has increased. The Biofábrica de Joaninhas (Ladybug Factory), an agency linked to the city of Belo Horizonte/MG, produces and distributes ladybug and chrysopid larvae, to communities and vegetable gardens, with the aim of protecting the production of vegetables, respecting the environment and people's health in general. This project was inspired by a similar work in Caen, France, started in 1980. The first official distribution to the local population took place in 1984 and remains a public policy in that country to this day. The objective of the work presented here was the development of an alternative packaging, produced with biodegradable materials, avoiding environmental problems, instead of the plastic ones normally used; the process was inspired by nature's solutions, and is able to transport the larvae of these insects from the Ladybug Factory to the vegetable gardens, facilitating the handling during the release of these insects, avoiding losses, and also protecting them.

Cellular materials can be found in numerous ways in nature, presenting interesting properties for applications in many fields, such as engineering and design. By combining a low density with a rigid structure, their macroscopic properties can essentially be derived from their microstructure, which can be classified into open- and closed-cell arrangements. Besides directly employing them in projects, synthetic polymeric alternatives have been developed, such as those bioinspired in their natural counterpart. Plant-based materials are originated from either wild or cultivated plants, which can be used as a raw material in product design after a few processes. They are considered mostly heterogeneous, biodegradable, and renewable materials. Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria—CUCURBITACEAE) is a plant-based cellular material used empirically. After harvesting and drying, the fruit becomes hollow, with porous mesocarp and impermeable exocarp. Present on all continents, even before human presence, the fruit was one of the first domestic plants, exhibiting the characteristics of easily adapting to any climate, presenting high productivity and its annual production cycle configures it as a renewable raw material alternative. Among its many applications, people use bottle gourd as vases, musical instruments, buoys, and masks; in southern Brazil—along with Argentina and Uruguay—the fruit is the main raw material for the manufacture of cuia, a container used for chimarrão, a traditional tea-like beverage (mate). The application of bottle gourd in the design of new products depends on the study of its structure and properties. This chapter presents the characterization of bottle gourd cellular structure regarding the material’s gradient porosity—from open to closed cells—with aims at bionics, using scanning electron microscopy and transmission light microscopy. The analyses showed the exocarp as a thin layer of compact closed cells, thus being waterproof, and the mesocarp formed by parenchyma cells that progressively increase in size towards the center, characterized by large empty spaces with thickened and lignified cell walls and intercellular communication channels, making the material water permeated. Overall, the material’s microstructure is presented as a functionally gradient material, leading to newer possibilities for the development of bioinspired cellular materials.

Using conventional microfabrication processes to obtain well-aligned arrays of microfluidic channels is very challenging and costly. Nature, on the other hand, is unique in creating complex hierarchical architectures. For instance, some wood-derived materials have aligned microchannels that may be explored to add new functions to these biological templates, expanding their uses toward greener electronic, biological, and energy devices. To explore novel hierarchical architectures, the 3D anisotropic structure of bamboo has been recently used as a bio-template for the fabrication of functional bio-devices, adding new functionalities to this natural material. Bamboo is a monocotyledon plant that shows high growth speed and that is widespread in tropical regions. It is considered an abundant and low-cost lignocellulosic natural resource that possesses fast microfluidic dynamics, good mechanical strength, lightweight, and high content of crystalline cellulose. Moreover, it can be pyrolyzed to become thermally and electrically conductive. From the anatomic point of view, bamboo is an anisotropic gradient functional material with an atactostele microarray channel system constituted by a complex of vascular bundles (metaxylem, protoxylem, and phloem) protected by lignocellulosic fibers (sclerenchyma) embedded into a matrix of living cells tissue (parenchyma). The vascular vessels are radially distributed from the inner to the outer wall of the internode culm with diameters ranging from 50 to 200 µm. As the bamboo microchannel arrays allow the flow of different types of fluids, passively or actively, through capillarity, vacuum, or pumping, this opens a plethora of possibilities. The lignocellulosic walls of the microchannels and the parenchymatous living cells can be functionalized to build up novel devices for environmental, health, chemical, and energy applications. Natural bamboo bio-templates decorated with plasmonic nanoparticles (Ag and Pd-NPs) have been used as a plasmonic system for solar steam generation. Conductive silver ink was used to achieve a regioselective coating of the 3D hollow channel for the prototyping of electric circuits, microfluidic heaters, and fully integrated micro electrochemical cells. Finally, new chemical functionalities have been added to the bamboo bio-template to obtain a chemical platform for analytical applications and click chemical reactions. Bamboo carbonized by pyrolysis was used as a 3D solar vapor-generation device for water desalination and also as a monolithic air cathode for microbial fuel cell applications. Therefore, bamboo stands as a promising natural template for devices that demand and take advantage of hierarchical architectures and microarray channels. It can be explored as raw or as carbonized material for scalable production of eco-friendly, sustainable, low-cost, and portable chemical, electronic, and electrochemical bio-devices. These bioinspired solutions could fulfill industrial demands for greener chemical, electronic, and energy applications.

Biomimetics emerges as an effective approach to identify functional bio-inspired solutions for the development of original design applications. This approach does not necessarily result in sustainable products and processes, which are frequently made of petroleum-based materials fabricated with non-renewable and high-energy consuming technologies. Nevertheless, the inspiration from nature has a great potential in terms of sustainable innovation, taking into consideration not only analogies but also the differences between the natural and artificial world. In this regard, the present contribution aimed to highlight the differences between biological and human industrial systems in scale, complexity, and organization, encouraging new sustainable biologically inspired designs increasingly close to the construction law of organisms. The result of this comparison emphasized nature’s intelligence concerning balanced source consumption and regeneration of ecosystems as well as the effective adaptation of organisms to natural cycles in time and space. A biomimetic approach that combines the use of bio-based materials with a coherent use of bioinspiration is here identified as a future sustainable and effective strategy to design a new human world, which does not impose on nature but is inspired and integrated with it.

Natural material is the classification given to those retrieved from nature, whether of plant, animal, or mineral origin. Essentially, after extraction, they are characterized by requiring little or no additional processing prior to their application in a project. Since the beginning of humanity, nature-sourced elements have been used as tools and weapons, and manufacturing techniques have been perfected by civilizations, due to humans’ wonder and curiosity about them. In addition to their mechanical properties of interest, natural materials are still valorized by their uniqueness and aesthetics—with their perfection through imperfection—giving individuality and character to each piece produced. Bionics is defined by the use of features from natural elements, such as shape, structure, organization, and aesthetics, in many fields such as design, engineering, and architecture, among others. This application can be realized directly or via a source of inspiration, through observations, adaptations, and parameterization. Brazil has one of the richest biodiversities in the world, with a great variety of both fauna and flora species, as well as rocks and minerals. In the country, there are many examples of different representative natural materials, such as golden grass (S. nitens—ERIOCAULACEAE), sisal (A. sisalana—AGAVACEAE), bottle gourds (L. siceraria—CUCURBITACEAE), mane and tail hair of horses, sheep wool, agate, opal, amethyst, Paraiba tourmaline, among others; many of which come from renewable sources, and others that are underutilized, leading to a large amount of wasted residues. Furthermore, little has been studied and explored regarding the aesthetic value of those materials. For instance, contemporary jewelry is defined by the application of unusual materials, techniques, and creative processes, redefining concepts and exploring new ways for a sustainable luxury. This chapter proposes a new look at Brazilian natural materials from renewable sources and waste, focusing on their use in two ways, (i) as raw material and (ii) as a source of inspiration. Brazilian natural materials from animal, plant, and mineral sources were collected and examined via light microscopy for the search of morphological characteristics and colors to be employed in a creative process. Collected samples were also employed as highlighted raw materials for the manufacturing of a jewelry collection, aiming to valorize and emphasize the usage of those materials that already comes from an inspirational origin.

Pheromones are chemicals used by living organisms for intraspecific communication. In animals, the ability to detect and discriminate pheromones in a complex chemical environment contributes substantially to the species’ survival. Insects primarily use specific chemical messages to attract mates, alarm conspecifics, or mark paths to rich food sources. These volatile molecules are generally detected through sensillae, specialized sensory neurons of the olfactory system located on the antennae [1]. Static pheromone traps have long been used to catch harmful insects in agricultural management. The team of very young researchers from BionikonLab & FABNAT14 (14–18 age) has experimented with ideas in the context of current developments in Precision Agriculture (PA). From the flying wing of Zanonia macrocarpa's samara analysis, inspired by some SEM ultrastructures of insect details and other bionic and biomimetic topics, this chapter proposed a new inflatable UAV concept at the service of resource optimization and sustainability management in agriculture. The goal is to reduce pesticides and other poisons that kill pollinating insects such as bees, to combat the chemical resistance of harmful insects that affect precious crops for humans. Unusual is the Tensairity^®Solutions’ technological approach to designing the flying body of Pherodrone1.0-UAV.

Living envelopes, such as biological skins and structures built by animals, are functional and sustainable designs resulting from years of evolution, conditioned by biological and physical pressures from the environment. When building a home, animals demonstrate inspiring strategies to protect themselves from predator threats and external climatic conditions. As for human buildings, temperature, humidity, air quality, light, are some of the various factors they have to manage for optimal conditions. Facing the climate emergency, growing efforts to build durable designs have led designers to search for more efficient or alternative solutions by observing Nature. The emerging field of bioinspiration including animal architecture has already brought few but rare exemplary innovations that were integrated into building designs. Data on animal architecture are scattered among various biological domains, from observation of species habitats by zoologists such as entomologists or ornithologists, to bioindicator studies by climatologists. Data collected by scientists is available in eclectic idioms, a challenge to be fully comprehended by building designers. This chapter presents a characterization of living envelopes aiming at facilitating the transposition of some relevant biological features into innovative and sustainable architectural designs. The approach is architecture and engineer oriented, assessing biological functions and strategies, using criteria that are meaningful to building designers: functional and temporal analyses of spaces and materials, physical factors regulated through envelopes, behaviors, and interactions of species. Applied to a sample of species and animal-built structures, the characterized biological role models put forwards multi-functionality and efficiency through relevant construction techniques, the use of local resources, as well as behavioral adaptation. Examples of applications inspired from the characterized species are described, from theoretical proposals to a very practical application of an adaptive envelope skin inspired by the Morpho butterfly.

The remarkable growth of urban areas is a scenario faced by many cities due to the high rate of population that migrates to these zones, increasing the heat stored in the built environment creating insurmountable microclimatic conditions within the metropolitan area for pedestrians. Such microclimatic conditions might cause the unfeasibility of using natural ventilation for indoor passive cooling, increasing the air conditioners usage, and by overlapping to the previous heat stored the risk of overheating rises. Tropical regions have presented increased floods, extreme winds, earthquakes, and tropical-heat waves. To address such climate related challenges, a review on bio-inspired designs strategies at city scale, although not widely implemented in situ, is presented. On the other hand, developing countries in tropical regions recently started to develop energy regulations for the built environment, making it difficult to visualize a short-term implementation of any bio-inspired design at the city scale. As a result, most studies remain in a preliminary research project status. The evaluation and comparison of the sustainability of various tropical region cities through the Green City Index is presented. This evaluation led to assess in detail a Case study in Panama City considering the three critical aspects in the built environment: the conditioning of indoor spaces for cooling, transport, and lighting. Based on ecosystem services, a set of indicators are proposed and evaluated to measure regeneration at the city scale. Finally, to evaluate the proposed solutions, a SWOT analysis is presented. The use of a regenerative methodology in cities would mean a greater consideration of nature in planning goals and an improvement in urban ecosystem relations.

An adaptive shading device is designed using biomimetics as a tool to optimize thermal comfort and help reduce energy consumption. Inspired by nyctinastic movements, ArtBuild’s Lab (AB Lab)—a transdisciplinary research laboratory created within ArtBuild’s architectural studio—began developing autonomous biomimetic façades in 2015 with the aim of reducing energy consumption in buildings and in particular, mass timber buildings, whose thermal inertia is low. The research project initially mimicked the mechanics and behaviour of stomata cells found abundantly in the plant species, drawing inspiration from the asymmetrical cell wall thickness to activate movement, and then moved on to developing prototypes for solar protection devices whose thermal actuation, shape memory, and geometry combine to enable them to echo the nastic movements described by Darwin. AB Lab’s team employs thermobimetals (TBMs)—composite metal alloys that react to temperature variations—to induce nastic movements in their shading devices. By exploiting the differential expansion coefficients of these alloys, the architects were able to shape the solar protection devices to cast measured shadows. Dubbed Pho’liage, the devices react to heat emanating from the sun. When outside temperatures exceed 25 °C, the TBM blades mimic the petals of a plant, opening as “flowers” to form a vast curtain protecting the building from thermal overload. When the temperature drops, the petals deform once again and the flowers close, allowing light to enter the building. Early versions of the Pho'liage prototypes revealed several challenges: the temperature-driven deformation of the bimetal, far from being uniform, often took place too abruptly given the dual conflicting expansion forces of the bimetal alloy surfaces. The very nature of the curvature dynamics was repeatedly reviewed. Lifecycle analysis of protective coatings showed the difficulties in sourcing ecological solutions for the alloys' external longevity. Apart from the basic geometry of the flowers, several designs were explored which integrate curve-line folding and adaptable honeycomb support structures, to enhance the efficiency of the open/close shading ratio. Finally, alternatives were suggested that look at reducing the quantity of TBMs, with the alloys acting as actuators whilst other materials such as specific biopolymers provide the shading function.