New advances in our understanding of the natural world, and our ever-improving ability to build things, are spurring more uptake of the process of biomimicry – the emulation of systems in nature – said panelists at a conference today.

Speaking at the Cleantech Venture Network’s Cleantech Forum XII in San Francisco, natural sciences writer Janine Benyus encouraged researchers and industry to look to nature as a database of solutions that are already functioning.

“Start by asking what challenge you’re trying to solve. Find something in the natural world that’s solved this problem or exhibited these qualities. Study the organism or system, and extract design principles to emulate,” said Benyus. “You don’t have to try to make an exact copy of the organism. Emulate a process. Or mimic the networks of ecosystems.”

Benyus is author of Biomimicry: innovation inspired by nature, and is widely credited with coining the phrase biomimicry.

Investor Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson said advances in manufacturing technology were driving advances in biomimicry, but agreed with Benyus that the biggest factor was growth in the body of biological knowledge, which he said was doubling every five years.

“It’s a brave new world that’s going on here. The pace of learning in the field is growing so exponentially that it makes Moore’s Law look flat in comparison,” he said.

While sounding counter-intuitive, Benyus said that nature shows sometimes less is more.

“When we do synthetic chemistry, we use the entire periodic table… because we can. And we do very, very, very simple reactions. Terry Collins pointed out to me that nature’s chemistry is a subset of the periodic table with very elegant reactions. So just borrowing from nature’s chemistry book should take us a very long way.”

Favorite examples of biomimicry in action cited by speakers:

• Mercedes Benz and DaimlerChrysler have studied the boxfish to better understand how to streamline airflow around vehicles
• The University of California at Berkeley is working to replace toxic glue by examining the feet of geckos
• Marine biologist Peter Steinberg found a strain of algae in the ocean that was free of bacteria, and is now investigating it for its applicability for disinfectants; as described by the speakers, the algae was able to “jam the signals” of the bacteria’s ability to communicate, making the algae a less attractive target
• A company in Sweden has found a way to make a fire retardant by making a compound that absorbs heat and oxygen made from grape skins leftover from wine making
• Applied Fluids Engineering, looking to optimize wind turbine design by emulating the scalloping of humpback whales’ fins, decreased the drag of an airfoil by 32%
• Autotype in the UK has created an anti-reflective laminate to put on top of solar cells that takes a cue from the eyes of moths, which don’t exhibit the “night shine” effect evident in cats’ eyes, for instance
• BioPower of Australia mimics kelp fronts, and now in latest models, the back end of a tuna, [ed.: you read that right!] to harvest energy from waves
• Konarka’s dye-sensitive thin film solar cells are based on how a leaf works

Benyus predicted that the solar industry, in particular, could still see breakthroughs by incorporating more improvements from nature.

“Life doesn’t take sunlight and put it onto wires. The energy from the sun is turned into chemistry. There’s a constant back-and-forth between the electric and chemical. And the way energy is stored in a natural system is very different from the way we do it. Remember, there are things like electric eels that can deliver 600 volts instantly. That’s a battery, and that’s being looked at.”

Benyus also advocated more use of biomimicry in the improvement of fuel cells, pointing out that membranes, needed in the handling of gases within the fuel cell, are already done very well in nature.