Each and every day researchers and scientists amaze us with their developments and today is no different. Two engineers at the University of South Carolina have devised a way to turn our clothing into a mobile power source capable of charging our electronics.
Professor of mechanical engineering Xiaodong Li, along with post-doctoral associate Lihong Bao, have turned a standard store-bought t-shirt into a fabric capable of storing an electrical charge. By soaking the shirt in fluoride, drying it, and then baking it in an oven void of any oxygen (so it wouldn’t burn or combust), they found that the t-shirt’s cotton fibers had been converted into activated carbon. This carbon acts as a capacitor, able to store electrical power. And in a successful attempt at making the fabric even more adept at storing energy, the researchers then coated the cotton fibers with manganese oxide one nanometer thick. This greatly increased the performance of the fabric by creating a supercapacitor capable of charging and discharging thousands of times without losing much overall capacity.
“By stacking these supercapacitors up, we should be able to charge portable electronic devices such as cellphones,” said Li. “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.
According to the researchers, the process is environmentally friendly and doesn’t use any toxic chemicals. While it is certainly some ways off from being mass marketed, this technology could simplify the way we charge our portable electronic devices. No longer would we have to remember our portable chargers or add-on cables; instead, we would be able to just “plug in” to our wardrobe whenever our batteries run low. Sometimes, science really amazes me.
[via Innovation News Daily]
Image Credit: Wikipedia