Biological and biomimetic surfaces: adhesion, friction and wetting phenomena

• Stanislav N. Gorb,
• Kerstin Koch and
• Lars Heepe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 481–482, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.48

• are devoted to surface-related effects in animal and plant surfaces, such as sandfish scales, wings of a ladybird beetle, tarsi of burying beetles, attachment devices of a sea star and a sea urchin, elytra of a backswimmer, leaves of an ice plant, and the wax layer of sacred lotus leaves. Seven of the

Characterization of the microscopic tribological properties of sandfish (Scincus scincus) scales by atomic force microscopy

• Weibin Wu,
• Christian Lutz,
• Simon Mersch,
• Richard Thelen,
• Christian Greiner,
• Guillaume Gomard and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2618–2627, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.243

• sandfish due to their ability to swim in loose, aeolian sand. Some studies report that this fascinating property of sandfish is accompanied by unique tribological properties of their skin such as ultra-low adhesion, friction and wear. The majority of these reports, however, is based on experiments

• conducted with a non-standard granular tribometer. Here, we characterise microscopic adhesion, friction and wear of single sandfish scales by atomic force microscopy. The analysis of frictional properties with different types of probes (sharp silicon tips, spherical glass tips and sand debris) demonstrates

• that the tribological properties of sandfish scales on the microscale are not exceptional if compared to snake scales or technical surfaces such as aluminium, Teflon, or highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. Keywords: biotribology; frictional properties of reptile scales; sandfish; Scincus scincus

Friction reduction through biologically inspired scale-like laser surface textures

• Johannes Schneider,
• Vergil Djamiykov and
• Christian Greiner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2561–2572, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.238

• demonstrated, for example, that sandfish skin exhibits low friction and little wear [25][26]. The development of manufactured surface textures that are inspired by animals with scale-like surface morphology has resulted in fascinating insights. For texturing a titanium alloy, a lithography-based method was

• slurries, and in contacts containing dry, fine oxide powders in order to simulate the environment that animals like sandfish encounter in their natural habitats. Preliminary results indicate that under these conditions, laser-generated scale-like surface morphologies have the potential to significantly

Moisture harvesting and water transport through specialized micro-structures on the integument of lizards

• Philipp Comanns,
• Christian Effertz,
• Florian Hischen,
• Konrad Staudt,
• Wolfgang Böhme and
• Werner Baumgartner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 204–214, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.24

• integument of lizards that do perform moisture harvesting, the droplet hardly spreads as shown in Figure 3D for a specimen of the so called sandfish (Scincus scincus). Although the velocity of the water spreading varies slightly throughout the body, we found absolutely no correlation of the wetting behaviour