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The world of
construction has moved beyond brick and mortar.Curtain glass walls and
aluminium panels are not the end of material advancement.The construction
industry is looking at materials that push their performance. Researchers are
mimicking nature and modifying material behaviour that will enhance building function and make maintenance easier.
Wilhelm Barthlott, a
German Scientist, studied “the behaviour of how lotus leaves pearled off the water
from its surface”. After careful study of the microstructure of the leaf, he
patented a technique called the ‘Lotus effect’. This technology was built into
a new kind of paint with a brand name Sto-Lotuscan colour. When this paint is
applied on a surface, it never allows water drops to stay. As a result, the
surfaces are kept clean and dry.They give no room for micro-organisms to grow.
No algae to dirty your painted wall.
Lotus leaves inspired
another group of Engineers differently. Engineers at Ohio University found the
waxy lotus leaf useful in designing self-cleaning windows. Through a rigorous
study of the leaf structure, Engineers have arrived at a suitable density and
pattern of placing tiny bumps on glass surface. These bumps imitate the leaf structure.
Since, they are smaller than a droplet and closely laid, they do not allow the
droplets to stay. The drops roll off keeping the surface clean.
Adrew R. Parker and
Chris Lawrence, in the United Kingdom, studied the African Namib beetle to
develop a new hybrid. The Namib beetle lives in the desert and depends on fog for its water. It positions its body at 45 degree and spreads its bumpy wing
against the wind that carries moisture. The moisture collects on the surface as
minute droplets, which then combine and roll as a water droplet directly into
the mouth of the beetle. The Scientists have developed a surface with
small-waxed glass beads imitating the beetel wings. When held at angle these
surfaces can collect water from the fog. These surfaces also come very useful,
where the temperature difference between inside and outside is significant.
The state of art
advancement is the nanomaterials. Nanomaterials or nanocrystaline materials are
those possessing very small sizes of grains in the order of a billionth of metre.
When the materials are produced with such small grain sizes their property changes.
They can radically change to provide useful innovations. For example; porcelain
that has excellent thermal properties but brittles; nano processing can become
so flexible that it can function as tiny spring in a computer and take care of
the heat that is produced.
Italcementi, the big
cement manufacturer in Italy, produced a special type of cement for the famed
Dives in Misericordia Church project in Rome. Richard Mier, the American Architect,
who designed this Church, is known for his obsessive use of white surfaces. The
new invention promised him that his designed white concrete surfaces would
always remain white; thanks to the new white cement that contains titanium
dioxide. Titanium oxide with photo catalytic action breaks various organic air
pollutants that touch the cement surface. It constantly oxidizes the pollutants
into carbon dioxide. As a result, the pollutants never get a layer to stick to.
The surface remains clean and white. The same catalytic properties of titanium
oxide are used in some of the buildings in Japan like Marunouchi building toreduce the discolouring of its walls due to pollution.
Two Researchers in
Australia pushed this concept little further. The photocatalytic of titanium
requires sunrays.Hence, such self-cleaning properties of titanium oxide could
only be mobilised for external use. Rose Amal and Professor Michael Brungs of
University of New South Wales have developed a nano material with titanium
oxide that can work with interior light. Lab tests have shown when this
material is applied over tiles and curtains and they can activate titanium oxide.
As a result, microbes like Escherchia coli are killed and other organic
compounds are disintegrated. This, it is hoped, will lead to designing a self
cleaning bathroom.
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