"Secrets" of the Lotus leaf inspiring breath-taking inventions

Text and pics by Cyril Basnayake

Lotus flowers in bloom

Water droplets roll off the surface of a Lotus leaf.

Nanotechnology and botany are currently combining to unravel the water-repellent capability and other scientifically relevant and intrigiving secrets of the Lotus - a profoundly sacred symbol in Eastern cultures such as our's, that are deeply touched by Buddhism.

For centuries, the Lotus has inspired reverential awe on account of its close association with some principal concepts of Buddhism. For example, the ability of the Lotus to rise from a pond's mire but retain its beauty and clearliness and for its expansive, green leaves to be free of water, have prompted a companions between it and the Bodhisattva or Buddha-to-be, who has his origins in this earthly life with all its pollutants - both moral and physical - but achieves human perfection despite having his feet firmly planted on the earth.

Although the Lotus leaf has a deceptively smooth, silky surface it is, infact, pock-marked by "tiny mountains" and crevices, Wilhelm Bathlott, a German botanist discovered on examining the Lotus leave's surface with the aid of an electron microscope. Such characteristics prevented water droplets from remaining on the leaf's surface. On the contracy, the water is enabled to run off the surface.

More recently scientists have developed theoretical models of the underlying mechanism of the leaf's "self-cleansing" properties. It has been found, for instance, that the leaf's surface contains "Micro-scale bumps and nano scale hair-like structures coupled with a waxy chemical composition", which keep the leaf free of water and extraneus material.

It has been also revealed that when a drop of water falls on a Lotus leaf, it forms a high contact angle, greater than 90 degrees, which helps mould the water in such a manner that it doesn't spread on the leaf's surface.

Based on these findings, today numerous inventions, such as, self-cleaning points, self-cleaning roofs and textiles have sprung-up but scientists believe a lot remains to be learnt about the "self-cleaning" mechanism of the Lotus.

Two scientists currently engaged in research on the Lotus leaf are Ohio University scholars, Barath Bhusan and Howard D. Wingbigler. Bhusan released that the texture of the Louts leaf could be reproduced to reduce friction between the moving parts of machines. Small machines being developed in micro and nanotechnology could not be lumbricted by normal means and would benefit specially from the research on the Lotus leaf's surface.

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