A professor of mechanical engineering at the University of South Carolina in the US has transformed a simple cotton T-shirt into a source of electrical power, giving hope that one day we could charge our portable electronic devices using the very clothes we are wearing.

In order to create a wearable power source, Professor Xiaodong Li and post-doctoral associate Lihong Bao soaked a normal cotton T-shirt in a fluoride solution, dried it and baked it in an oxygen-free oven at a high temperature. As a result the fibers on the surface of the T-shirt were transformed into a highly porous and absorptive form of carbon, known as activated carbon. The T-shirt retained its flexibility and could be folded without breaking yet was capable of storing electrical charge. Li and Bao then covered the T-shirt in manganese oxide, improving the electrical storage capacity of the T-shirt, making it a more efficient ‘supercapacitor,' so that after "thousands of charge-discharge cycles, performance didn't diminish more than five percent."

Li believes that one day technology of this kind could be used to charge smartphones and other portable devices, stating, "One day our cotton T-shirts could have more functions; for example, a flexible energy storage device that could charge your cell phone or your iPad."

Wearable energy storage devices are a hot topic of research: just earlier this year researchers at Stanford University reported a 'breakthrough' in creating jeans capable of storing energy, and on June 28 an article was published in the journal Scientific Reports exploring the possibility of creating a 'spray-on battery' that could change any surface into an energy storage device.

Professor Xiadong Li and postdoctoral associate Lihong Bao's findings were published in the June 26 edition of the subscription-only Journal of Advanced Materials.

http://www.thenewage.co.za/55520-1021-53-Could_your_Tshirt_one_day_charge_your_cell_phone_Perhaps_say_scientists

Seems more like turning the t-shirt into a battery of sorts? Still need to get the energy from elsewhere.

Btw, I honestly don't know why smart phones can't be charged just from kinetic energy from someone walking. Should be some sort of small device you can embed in a phone that generates electricity from motion.

ekt_bear: Seems more like turning the t-shirt into a battery of sorts? Still need to get the energy from elsewhere.

Btw, I honestly don't know why smart phones can't be charged just from kinetic energy from someone walking. Should be some sort of small device you can embed in a phone that generates electricity from motion.

The casings could also be designed to utilise solar energy

solar, you need a large area in order to gets lots of electricity

Also useless at night, or if your phone is mostly in your pocket, etc

not to mention how expensive solar is as an energy source

holymike47:

The casings could also be designed to utilise solar energy

There are a thousand and one better ways to achieve it, eg Electroactive Dielectric Elastomers (EAPs). These magic materials can generate electric currents when stretched or flexed (they can also be stretched or flexed by electric current).
The great thing is that they are dead cheap as well.

Nigeria should be very interested in such future tech. I can think of a thousand and one uses without even blinking.

Nice article by the way.

Those interested in this field should read up on energy scavenging. Its a highly intriguing area of research.
The pic below speaks for itself.

Wither 9ja?



http://spie.org/x48868.xml

Beaf: Those interested in this field should read up on energy scavenging. Its a highly intriguing area of research.
The pic below speaks for itself.

Wither 9ja?



http://spie.org/x48868.xml

Please is there no more phone section ?

Sure thing[img]http://www.50centloseweight.com[/img]

kiyosaki1: Please is there no more phone section ?

Does that shoe look like a phone to you? Abi you have started smoking pawpaw leaf and drinking alomo bitters with garri again?

Some day