It sounds like something right out of science fiction, but one day we may wear clothes that are able to charge our phones.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed fabric that can generate energy both from the sun and from movement.
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The hope is that one day we can have clothes that will allow us to power devices such as smartphones.
A commercial textile machine was used to weave solar cells made of lightweight polymer fibres together with something called fibre-based tribolectric nanogenerators.
As the material slides, vibrates or rotates, these nanogenerators are able to create a small amount of power.
“The fabric is highly flexible, breathable, lightweight and adaptable to a range of uses,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering.
Researchers were able to generate a significant amount of energy by using fabric about the size of a sheet of paper as it blew in the wind out a car window, which illustrated that the material could also withstand harsher movement than just being rolled or vibrated.
“This hybrid power textile presents a novel solution to charging devices in the field from something as simple as the wind blowing on a sunny day,” said Wang.
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