Nature as an Inspiration to Exploit Renewable Energy Sources: A Review on Trends and Biological Strategies

Climate change is an undeniable problem that we, as humanity, currently face. There has been considerable effort from scientists all around the world who dedicate their efforts to studying this phenomenon, and to provide viable solutions, like renewable energy sources and the lowering of global energy consumption. With that in mind, biomimicry is a subject which is becoming more relevant in engineering and architectural applications each day. This includes energy generation as well. Biomimicry is defined as a practice that learns from, and mimics the strategies found in nature to solve human design challenges. It has been historically applied in an architectural sense, but the purpose of this article is to examine the recent trends in biomimicry research related to energy generation, and more specifically, renewable energy sources. Consideration of these trends demonstrates a consistent increase in interest from the scientific community to study and develop advancement in energy generating technologies, using biomimicry as a base. It also shows that, while there is considerable interest in biomimicry applied to energy generation, it is still in its early stages, and requires even more contribution from the global scientific community.