Energy-Generating Fabric Set To Power Battery-Free Wearables 40
An anonymous reader writes A team of researchers in Korea and Australia have developed a flexible fabric which generates power from human movement – a breakthrough which could replace batteries in future wearable devices. The effect of the fabric's nanogenerators mirrors static electricity with the two fabrics repeatedly brushing against each other and stealing electrons from the one another – this exchange creates energy from the wearer's activity without the need for an external power source. During testing, the researchers demonstrated the nanogenerator powering a number of devices such as LEDs, a liquid crystal display, as well as a keyless car entry system embedded in a nanogenerator 'power suit'.
The only problems being (Score:1)
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The jacket is a good idea (not as many times in the laundry). Wireless power? How? Induction, ultrasonic? They'll have too much attenuation loss.
First thing I thought of... (Score:3)
How about flags? It's windy as heck here, and putting up a flag is about as easy as anything ever gets. You get a lot of motion, at least in this neck of the woods.
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And here I thought that static electricity was the friend of sensitive electronics.
Re:The only problems being (Score:5, Funny)
I'm surprised no one ever thought of this. What are they thinking?? I mean, it seems so obvious.
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What are they thinking??
I think they're still building a better mousetrap. Batteries come next.
Swimwear (Score:2)
1. Get swim suit made of magic fabric.
2. Swim, thereby heating the pool.
3. Say goodbye to expensive pool-heating bills!
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Lets spend hundreds of dollars on expensive fabric that that may be ruined in the wash instead of using a 49 cent battery, Lol. I guess fabric softener is out of the question.
better yet (Score:1)
build a track suit, generate power from running, use this for cooling, stick a little hamster logo on it...
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this will mean they get more free power which will make them even wealthier. This needs to be banned.
Free power.
Plus a $0.01 distribution fee.
Plus a $0.02 energy tax.
Plus a $0.01 fee to support the power companies losing business.
Plus a $0.005 generation fee.
Plus...
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I think you need to see some 350 lbs. crack whores buying orange drink and ding dongs with their SNAP card. They vote Democrat.
So a coat it silly, but what about...? (Score:4, Interesting)
While I agree that putting the fabric inside a coat demonstrates a naive view of human factors (you can't wash the coat, you have to wear it all the time, etc.), I wonder if this might simply be the first idea they had after developing the invention?
Fabric generating power from movement would seem to have applications in other places: sails on boats; flags flying on buildings; tarpaulins on trucks, maybe quite a few others if the fabric is sufficiently robust enough.
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People typically don't wash coats and typically wear them every day and all the time when they're outside (in winter that is).
Re:So a coat it silly, but what about...? (Score:4, Interesting)
if it was that efficient, they would have chosen a windmill demonstrator.
it's not that efficient, so they chose this demonstrator. if it provided enough power to charge a phone, they would have had that on the demonstrator. all their uses could be done with a tiny solar cell.
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Patent protection (Score:2)
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Presumably the answer is: you wash it, and it still works.
No idea if this prototype has that property, but it very well might. (I didn't RTFA.) You can wash LilyPads [arduino.cc], can't you?
Australian science - and what it has become (Score:1)
I am sick of those attention whores in Australian universities - those chinese and indians who do whatever they can to attract attention and push their funding agenda. I'm tired of articles like this, that claim a "breakthrough" when there is nothing even remotely near a good, reproducible and insightful science. It must be stopped, but unfortunately this means that a substantial bulk of those pseudoscience schmucks will be thrown awa
Better way to do this... (Score:2)
Corduroy Pants and thigh-mounted thermocouples. Could maybe power a Peltier Chiller all up in there...
The 70s called (Score:2)
You want to produce power with clothing? Just bring back cheap polyester clothing. The static discharge alone would power an iWatch.
Yes, lets call it an iWatch just to piss off apple marketing and branding idiots.
miniscule amount of power makes it pointless (Score:2)
I can power all the devices the summary lists with two coins stuck lemon juice or a potato, A mere 1.1 mW? A single "D" alkaline battery would last for a year and a couple months at that power level.
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