I know quite a lot of effort went into bio-fouling in the
bio-engineering and chemical engineering areas a while ago (maybe its
still going on ?)
A check through their research literature should pull up where the state
of the art is at the moment.
As for how nature does it I'd guess there is a level of 'putting up with
it' goes on and as you say biochemical warfare going on between things
which want to adhere to something and those things which don't want to
be adhered to.
Richard's right that the lotus leaf effect seems to be a good way of
getting rid of water and liquids from surfaces. Though this trick relies
on playing with the surface curvature in relation to the 'affibility' of
the liquid and surface. Don't know whether slime really has a wetting
angle as it were. Anyone else know ?
Slimy pipes would probably periodically have to shed slime and that's
not a nice thing to turn up in a tin of beans is it ? yurgh...
Chris
--
Dr Chris Smith,
School of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Exeter,
Exeter, Devon, EX4 4QF, UK.
tel +44 (0) 1392 263652, fax +44 (0) 1392 217965
http://www.secsm.ex.ac.uk/contacts/indiv/Smith_W_Chris.html
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