Improving 3-D Printing By Copying Nature

An anonymous reader writes "Biologist Janine Benyus is excited about the 3-D printer revolution and she thinks it can be improved by modeling natural processes. 'Benyus, who wrote Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature and co-founded the institute Biomimicry 3.8, would like to see a transition in manufacturing—from big, smoke-belching factories to small, clean desktop printers. The key to making it truly sustainable, she said, lies in mimicking how a natural ecosystem functions. "Nature uses life-friendly chemistry, which is nontoxic and water-based, and which does not require high heat," said Benyus. In contrast, most of the products people use today have been forged in industrial-size furnaces, with a plethora of toxic solvents. A potato chip bag may seem like a simple item, but it is actually made up of several thin layers of different materials, one to make it strong, one to make it airtight, and so on.'"

Comments

Re:Please quite making asinine statements.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chem Eng, Enviro specialty here. Biological processes are sweet because they run at/near SATP (room temp and pressure) and generally use water (cheap, non-toxic) as a solvent. Typical industrial processing techniques use harsh-assed chemicals (safety + environmental risk) and a lot of energy (usually heat). That being said, biological systems are typically inefficient as shit and can't produce the same output / rector volume but are much cheaper. SO if you can create a culture that's particularly suited to what you want it to do (E. Coli is often used) you can recreate an expensive process that involves toxic (read: expensive to dispose of) with a cheap process with a disposal cost that is orders of magnitude lower than the traditional solution.

So yeah, that's why biological processes (low temp, nontoxic materials) are sweet. They cost less.