2020 | Netherlands | Elise Hornstra, Nikki van Haasteren

Biomimicry: Nature’s blueprint

Water issue adressed: Too dirty
The recreation of natural filtration processes in plastic bottles.

Biomimicry is an art that uses processes that are found in nature to solve human problems. Biomimicry can be used to clean water. During this research, the problem-driven approach is used. This approach starts with the essence of a problem and follows various research steps to find a solution. The filtration processes that were put in practice were filtration through sedimentation, soil and plants. These processes showed the most potential from processes that were researched. The filtered water was then tested on various components.
The conclusion was that the design for a water filtration system that is broadly applicable and provides safe drinking water needs to be based on the filtration processes in the kidneys, soil and plants.

This is how I came up with the idea for this project:

Both of us found the plastic problem an interesting topic. Astrid van Tongeren introduced us to biomimicry. We realized that the plastic problem could be solved by high quality water filtration and after years of nature's evolution, we can use nature as in inspiration to filter water by imitating life.

CONTACT WATERTANK

Ania Andersch

Programme manager ania.andersch@siwi.org +46 8 121 360 59