Zebra mussels can detect toxins in water. So maybe Avon Lake Regional Water can learn something from them. 

Turns out, fish and other underwater life forms can perform some interesting tricks with water. Given that they've been submerged in it for millions if not billions of years. 

Avon Lake Regional Water is one of a few local companies trying to take advantage of those skills. 

Nine local companies aim to master the art of stealing ideas from Mother Nature with the help of a local nonprofit called Great Lakes Biomimicry. 

Three of them — Avon Lake Regional Water, Parker Hannifin and Ross Incineration Services — aim to use biomimicry to come up with better ways to monitor and clean water. 

In some cases, they're working together. And Lorain County Community College aims to help, too. The college plans to create a water sensor technology center on the third floor of the sensor development center it opened on its campus about a year ago. 

Avon Lake Regional Water plans to take advantage of the new lab. 

Like the other companies working with GLBio, Avon Lake Regional Water will work with a student studying for a Ph.D. in biomimicry from the University of Akron. 

The student will be tasked with helping the utility figure out whether there's anything it could learn from zebra mussels, which close their shells when they encounter contaminated water, and any other creature that might be able to tell when toxic algae levels are rising. 

The utility plans to use LCCC's water technology lab to create a sensor that could mimic those capabilities, according to chief utilities executive Todd Danielson. Such a sensor could help the utility get ready for algal blooms like the one that contaminated Toledo's drinking water last summer, forcing the city to issue a drinking water ban that lasted three days. 

“The economic impacts are huge,” Danielson said. 

Ross Incineration Services might use the lab, too. The company, which is just south of North Ridgeville, has identified a biological organism that could help it come up with a new way to purify the water it uses in its air pollution control system. 

Lots of other companies could be using biomimicry to develop water technologies, too, according to Joe Sherman, director of research and development at Ross Incineration, a subsidiary of Ross Environmental Services in Elyria. 

“I think it's a great opportunity not only for us, but any company ... that deals with water,” he said. 

Parker Hannifin could use biomimicry to develop water technology, but for now it's mainly focused on another idea: Birds can see some light rays that are invisible to humans, so the Mayfield Heights-based motion and control technology company aims to come up with a similar technology that could allow them to spot a piece of equipment that isn't working right. 

However, Parker could end up helping Ross develop a better way to clean water. It makes sense for Parker, given that water touches so many industrial process — and Parker products, according to Pete Buca, vice president of technology and innovation for Parker's fluid connectors group. 

Among those products are valves for coffee machines and water purification systems for boats. 

“Fresh water is used in so many things,” Buca said. “It's not just drinking water.” 

Parker has seen the benefits of biomimicry: Inspired by the skin of a snake, six years ago the company developed a hose lined with ceramic hexagons. It was flexible and much stronger than the steel pipe it was built to replace. That pipe, which was used to transport abrasive materials used to make cement, would wear out every two weeks. 

The new pipe has held up for six years — and Parker sells them today, Buca said. 

He'll talk your ear off about biomimicry if you let him. Tom Tyrrell will, too. He's best known around town for founding American Steel & Wire in the 1980s, but now he's the CEO of GLBio. 

The nonprofit has an ambitious mission: To get people all over Northeast Ohio — be they researchers, business executives or students — to start thinking about what they can learn from nature. Through evolution, plants and animals have already developed solutions for many of the problems we humans would like to solve. 

Tyrrell often will point to Japan's bullet train. Its nose was designed to mimic the beak of the kingfisher, a bird that can dive into water without making a splash. As a result, the train is faster, quieter and uses less energy.
 

Some of Northeast Ohio's best-known companies believe in the idea: Sherwin-Williams, Goodyear and Gojo Industries, which makes Purell and other skin care products, are among the companies working with GLBio. 

GLBio also has raised donations to finance five biomimicry-related education programs, most of which are tied to local middle schools and high schools. 

Colleges like LCCC, the University of Akron and Baldwin Wallace University have been weaving biomimicry into their education programs as well. 

Plus, GLBio is holding training sessions designed to help the companies it works with learn how to invent using biomimicry. 

“We'll have more ... trained people in biomimicry than any other place in the world,” Tyrrell said. 

GLBio is raising money to fund its own organization, too. The nonprofit has mainly been fueled by volunteer work since Tyrrell started the organization in 2010. 

When Lorain County Community College finishes the new water technology lab, GLBio will move its small office on campus into the building. 

The college plans to move some equipment from its lab sciences building into the water technology center. 

It will buy more using part of a $2 million state grant, which “will get us started,” according to Tracy Green, vice president of strategic and institutional development at LCCC. 

Prototypes that can't be made in the college's sensor technology center — the Richard Desich Smart Commercialization Center for Microsystems — could be made in its fabrication lab, which includes equipment for designing, cutting and building things. The college could provide a good jumping off point for new companies formed to commercialize those technologies, Green said. 

The school houses the Glide business incubator and a technology transfer office that helps local inventors get to the point where they can either launch a business or license their technology to someone else. 

Avon Lake Regional Water would be in the market for those services — if it can find a way to outsmart toxic blue-green algae. If it succeeds, other utilities would want to use the technology, too, Danielson said. 

Avon Lake Regional Water doesn't have much experience commercializing new technologies, but it might be a good way to generate revenue, Danielson said, noting that wastewater treatment plants aren't receiving as much federal funding as they used to. 

“We can't be yesterday's public utility,” he said.

Read more: http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20150222/SUB1/302229987/companies-search-the-seas-for-ways-to-protect-water

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