The creative ways animals, plants and computers have of using every drop of water when the temperatures rise.
The creative ways animals, plants and computers have of using every drop of water when the temperatures rise.
It's no secret that global warming is upon us. We’ve experiencing more and more extreme conditions, with longer dry periods, shorter but stormier rainy seasons, and increased flooding. At Tel Aviv University, our researchers are monitoring the animals and plants that live and thrive in extreme conditions, learning about the unique mechanisms they’ve developed, and developing ways that will help us, and even our electronics, survive the intense heat.
Dr. Bat-El Pinchasik, from Tel Aviv University’s School of Mechanical Engineering, was fascinated by the creative ways beetles and lizards have of utilizing the water around them, and today she develops biomimetic systems that mimic desert animals’ solutions to the water problem. “Insects and lizards that live in areas without a lot of access to water have to collect it from other sources, for example, from the air and from morning fogs,” explains Dr. Pinchasik. "At times, when temperatures are lower, when there is higher wind and humidity in the air - the air condenses on their bodies. Evolution has made them a 'smart surfaces' that spontaneously transports the water that’s been collected directly into their mouths."
The Texas horned lizard, for example, has three-dimensional trenches on its back that serve as its personal superhighway. The Namib Desert beetle’s body is mostly hydrophobic (water repellent), but is also sprinkled with hydrophilic micrometric protrusions, which concentrate droplets of water in specific places, and roll them directly into the beetle's mouth. "Our aim is to define the rules that make these sorts of mechanisms efficient, develop smart materials similar to the ones the beetles have, and to use advanced 3D printing technologies to build systems that can change lives in areas where water is inaccessible," says Dr. Pinchasik.
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Image via Tel Aviv University.
