A bio-inspired approach for boosting innovation in the separation technology sector

Because of its size, high segmentation within the global market and challenges driving its development, the separation technology sector could benefit from a bio-inspired approach to innovation to create more efficient and sustainable solutions. The potential for bio-inspired innovation is still largely untapped and Biologically-Inspired Design (BID) methods and tools are still largely underutilised, especially within the industry. A new BID method, called Guild-Based (GB) BID, is proposed to create a database of a large set of biological solutions – identified by a function – where biological information is structured to be more effective and usable within the industrial environment. A database for the separation technology sector has been set up and populated with 118 relevant biological solutions responding to the main function ‘to separate’. The database has been utilised to generate several clusters of solutions depending on the level of detail of the formulated problem. In particular, these include broad design principles of separation, taxonomies of biological solutions for specific separation problems and novel design concepts for two specific separation technologies (a desalination technology and an antibacterial surface). Furthermore, because of a large dataset of biological solutions, the possibility of determining the frequency of occurrence of specific separation strategies in nature can trigger reflections on the impact of existing separation technologies and taking decisions on future related R&D paths. More tests need to be conducted in the industrial environment; however, the results achieved so far indicate that the method proposed can indeed be instrumental to generating innovative ideas of interest to the separation technology sector.