Biofilms are generally seen as a problem
to be eradicated due to the hazards they pose for humans and materials.
However, these communities of algae, fungi, or bacteria possess interesting
properties both from a scientific and a technical standpoint. A team from the
Technical University of Munich (TUM) describes processes from the field of
biology that utilize biofilms as 'construction workers' to create structural
templates for new materials that possess the properties of natural materials.
In the past, this was only possible to a limited extent.
Whether it is wood, bone, mother of
pearl, or teeth -- over millions of years, these materials have been optimized
via evolution according to the principle of adapted stability with the lowest
possible weight. Nature has provided the blueprints for many technical
developments. Examples include airplane wings, zippers, and surface sealants
using a lotus effect. However, reverse engineering replicas cannot reproduce
the structural complexity of the original in nature.
As the interface between biology and
technology, bionics utilizes methods and systems found in nature to provide
solutions to technical problems. When it was still limited to using natural
shapes, e.g. as templates for development in the design of airplane wings or
ship hulls, the problems remained manageable. However, imitating the material
properties of natural construction materials is an entirely different story.
This is because they are found in the inner structures, where fibers are linked
to each other over several orders of magnitude and across various hierarchical
levels.
See:
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle
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Pharmaceutical Microbiology