Engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Chongqing University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a fabric that is capable of producing electricity from sunlight and from friction, including wind.
Getting power from both (or either) is a huge leap forward in lightweight, wearable power production.
Engineer, Zhong Lin Wang, from George Tech, explains “here, we present a foldable and sustainable power source by fabricating an all-solid hybrid power textile with economically viable materials and scalable fabrication technologies. Based on lightweight and low-cost polymer fibres, the reported hybrid power textile introduces a new module fabrication strategy by weaving it in a staggered way on an industrial weaving machine via a shuttle-flying process“…
They are experimenting with “arbitrary size and various weaving patterns” and finding success throughout…
Three examples of the textile at work, including “directly charging a cell phone (d) and continuously powering an electronic watch in a wearable manner (e).” Image: Nature Energy
Currently, someone walking in sunlight while wearing a 4x5cm piece of this cloth can generate about .5 mW of power. Taking into account the friction created by movement (like hand shaking), one person could generate up to 2 volts per minute.
“It is worth noting that the hybrid power textile is not limited to wearable applications,” Wang and co. write. “It can also act as a piece of flag, harvesting energy from sunlight and ambient wind blowing, and the delivered power is also capable of charging personal electronics as well as driving electrochemical reactions for self-powered water splitting.
In addition, the hybrid power textile was also demonstrated to generate power from weak sunlight and wind from a moving car in a city location on a cloudy day, which also indicates its decent capability of working even in a harsh environment.”
The study goes on to show that the materials are ready for industrial application. We could be wearing these very, very soon (via Minds).
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