The perenial complaint about the battery life of our mobile devices has found new life with wearables. With most smartwatches needing to be recharged nightly, consumers continue to voice their wish for longer battery life. Could another wearable be the answer that everyone has been looking for? Scientists at the Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea have come up with a motion-powered fabric that can gather enough energy from movement to power small electronic devices.
In the study, a foldable patch of fabric wrapped around a person’s wrist gathered enough energy from arm movements to power six embedded LEDS, a small liquid-crystal display and a keyless car remote control one at a time. The fabric is made up of two layers, one a plain silver-coated textile and the other made of fibers coated with 100-nm-wide zinc oxide nanorods coated in polydimethylsiloxane. Power was generated by frictive contact between the two layers, an effect known as triboelectric. Four generators were used to increase the power output.
The research team is now testing more materials in a bid to discover ones that could generate even more power.
While there is no word yet on when we will be able to use motion-powered fabrics to power our mobile devices, the uses could well extend beyond smartwatches to fields as varied as medicine and defence technology.
Sources : Motherboard // Discovery