The App Store for Surface Innovations: Fusion Bionic
Imagine an Airbus A350 flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet. At this altitude, atmospheric conditions present a significant and complex technical challenge: icing.
Until now, the aviation industry has relied on energy-intensive heating systems or toxic chemical de-icing sprays to address this hazard.
But what if the aircraft's outer skin could simply repel the ice on its own?
In a pivotal “aha moment” that would ultimately lead to the company’s spin-off from the Fraunhofer Society, the Fusion Bionic team proved that this was possible. By applying a laser-textured surface to an actual Airbus A350, they successfully demonstrated passive de-icing.
The video on the left demonstrates how the surfaces developed by Fusion Bionic can reduce ice buildup on an Airbus A350. Innovations inspired by nature are often right in front of our eyes.
This transition from laboratory theory to real-world application perfectly illustrates the immense potential of the bio-inspired surface technology.
Fusion Bionic isn't just developing a single cool product; it's building the infrastructure to scale biomimicry in manufacturing with microscopic precision. The goal is to leverage tiny structural changes to achieve remarkable functional results.
Atomic in the sense that small changes can lead to big results.
This innovative startup acts as an “app store” for surface technology, enabling engineers to solve complex problems by “downloading” 3.8 billion years of natural research and development.
Nature as a reference guide
In the world of biomimicry, there are two main paths to innovation. One could start with a fascinating biological discovery, such as the well-known self-cleaning properties of a lotus leaf, and then look for potential applications.
However, when it comes to industrial mass production, Tim Kunze, CEO of Fusion Bionic, focuses on a problem-oriented approach:
For Fusion Bionic, nature serves as a vast, strategic library. When a client identifies a specific technical challenge—such as friction, moisture, or glare—the team consults this biological “reference guide” to identify organisms that have evolved to overcome similar functional challenges.
The problem: A customer needs an anti-icing solution for industrial facilities.
The strategy: Engineers are studying how certain organisms survive temperatures below freezing without harm.
The abstraction: They identify unique microstructures (such as those found in scallop shells) and apply their functional principles to laser-generated textures.
Instead of creating new designs from scratch, designers can essentially “download” nature’s proven patterns and apply them to man-made surfaces.
The Reality of Manufacturing: Adaptation Rather Than Imitation
The goal of biomimicry is not merely to copy nature, but to gain a deep understanding of its mechanisms and apply them through functional abstraction.
Although it would be technically possible to try to replicate biological structures exactly, this would not be feasible in a manufacturing setting.
Nature creates through organic growth—it builds structures cell by cell, from the inside out. At Fusion Bionic, however, we use high-speed laser structuring to shape the material from the outside in.
This is where the true innovation lies: Fusion Bionic not only replicates biological surfaces, but also translates the functional logic of a natural model into a design that can be rapidly produced in an industrial setting.
It bridges the gap between the organic complexity of life and the efficiency of modern surface technology.
Case Study: The Scallop Heat Exchanger
When Fusion Bionic was tasked with reducing ice buildup on the fins of aluminum heat exchangers, the company took inspiration from the ridges of a scallop shell. However, they didn’t simply carve a perfect replica of the shell into the metal.
Instead, they abstracted the core geometry of the scallop shell’s surface so that it could be quickly produced using their high-tech lasers. The result? Initial results on flat aluminum sheets showed that texturing reduced ice formation by 80%. That is the essence of an effective, Innovation Inspired by Nature: to adopt the functional design and adapt it to the realities of industrial mass production.
Multi-objective optimization: Solutions for complex realities
In the real world, products rarely face just a single environmental challenge. Nature is a master of multi-functional optimization (a leaf must simultaneously capture light, repel water, and breathe), and biomimetic technologies must do the same.
A perfect example of this is Fusion Bionic's work with solar panels in the Middle East, particularly in Qatar.
The environmental conditions in this arid region are extreme and require a surface capable of addressing several overlapping challenges:
- Anti-contamination / Dust protection: The surface must prevent fine, abrasive desert dust from burning into the glass like cement.
- Anti-reflective: The better solar collectors absorb light, the more energy they produce.
Fusion Bionic's technology provides dirt-repellent, anti-glare, and anti-reflective properties. All three properties are suitable for photovoltaic modules.
By combining various bio-inspired microstructures, Fusion Bionic’s laser technology can solve both problems on a single glass plate, thereby drastically reducing maintenance costs and improving energy efficiency.
The Future: A Sustainable Tool for Mass Production
The ultimate vision for this technology goes far beyond the development of better solar panels or safer airplanes (which I personally find incredibly inspiring).
Fusion Bionic is committed to fundamentally transforming the way we manufacture surfaces.
Until now, it has been common practice to alter the properties of a surface by applying additives—often toxic chemical coatings, paints, or laminates that degrade over time, peel off, and harm the environment.
Fusion Bionic's laser-based technology represents a paradigm shift.
By physically altering the topography of the base material itself, they largely avoid the use of chemical additives. The future they are shaping is one in which surface modification is driven exclusively by energy (ideally renewable), creating a sustainable tool for mass production that eliminates toxicity at the source.
When we look to the future of sustainable technology, it becomes clear that the solutions to our most pressing problems have already been found … in nature.
All we need are the right tools to bring the designs to life.
P.S. – Still curious? Then read this article at Biomimicry and the Future of Surfaces
