A multi-disciplined team of scientists, including researchers from Heriot-Watt University's Research Institute for Flexible Materials, recently shared their goal of soon enabling clothes like pair of jeans and a jacket, among others, to one day, charge a mobile phone and other electronic gadgets through clean energy.
The said team, Phys.org reported, is behind this new project of harvesting the kinetic energy yielded in clothing through state-of-the-art nanotech.
The researchers, all of whom are based in Ireland and Scotland, are attempting to develop a friction-based wearable autonomous energy system.
With this invention, they will employ pioneering nanogenerators developed to capture and reuse the kinetic energy in clothing materials made as to the wearer moves. If the project succeeds, these small, unobtrusive devices will be woven into people's daily clothing.
To Power Tech Gadgets
The researchers said their technology could be available by 2027. As such, it can power a host of tech gadgets, including mobile phones, tablets, and smart watches.
Heriot-Watt's School of Textiles and Design in the Scottish Borders' Professor George Stylios, leading the project's textile aspects, is currently investigating approaches and methods to develop and integrate the said technology into garments.
Specifically, the project leader said, as humans, a huge amount of energy is collectively expended as humans move around, so "why not capture this and put it into good use?"
To do so would not just benefit the Earth in humans' fight against climate change but deliver as well, ongoing convenience to the lives of people.
The fabric types and mechanics, and most essentially, the fabric's surface interaction, are essential in enabling the generation of adequate energy by coupling the motion and nanotech's impact to produce a renewable energy source. The project, as described in this report, is a marriage between cutting-edge science and fabric.
The 'TENG' Fabrics
In a similar way, static electricity is developed, the researchers are looking to enhance the friction yielded between two materials to produce a charge.
They are devising a flexible fabric, also called the triboelectric nanogenerator, or TENG, as explained in the SPJ journal, to connect and store this source of sustainable energy.
Past attempts to develop TENG fabrics have failed largely because of them being unable to produce adequate power.
However, the aims of this latest project to use specialist materials for the maximization of fabric friction and design a highly efficient TENG fabric with improved performance.
Technology in Clothes
In a related report, DesignNews specified that the University of Bath scientists, the Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, and the Portugal-based University of Coimbra devised solution-processed piezoelectric nylon fibers are smart enough to generate electricity from simple movements of the body.
Such an invention gives way to smart clothing that can monitor one's health and vital signs by means of sensors and can charge devices as well, minus the need for an external source of power.
According to the former group leader at the MPI-P, Professor Kamal Asadi, currently a Department of Physics professor in Bath, there is a rising demand for smart, electronic garments, although finding electronics materials' low-cost and readily accessible fibers that are suitable for today's clothing is a challenge in the textile industry.
Together with his former Ph.D. student Saleem Anwar, he initiated the work to develop piezoelectric nylon fibers, making the new invention possible.
The research team started their study at the Max Planck Institute in September, before Asadi moved to Bath University.
Related information about triboelectric nanogenerators is shown on Georgia Tech's YouTube video below:
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