Nanowire Fabrics That Generate Electricity From Motion

Thanks to nanotechnology researchers, soon the term ‘power suit’ may take on a whole new meaning. Soon power can be generated from the clothing on soldiers in the field, hikers, runners, or anyone else who may need to power small electronic devices in ultra remote areas.

Zinc oxide nanowire covered pairs of textile fibers use the piezoelectric effect to generate electricity. Combining current flow from many of these fibers that are woven into jackets, shirts or even pants, could allow the energy of the wearer’s body movements to be converted into useable electricity to power small portable devices. These same fibers could also find a place being woven into tents, sails, flags and other structures that could capture the energy from wind motion, sound vibration or other forms of mechanical energy.

These fibers produce energy by rubbing back and forth with movement. However because they are small in size, the nano-generators produce small amounts of power, about 800 nano-amperes and 20 millivolts from an area 2 by 3 millimeters square.

The microfiber generators are made up of DuPont Kevlar fibers, that have had zink oxide nanowires grown radially and have had their roots imbedded in a polymer, creating what looks like a microscopic baby bottle brush.

One of the fibers in each pair of the zinc coated pair is also coated with gold to deflect the nanowire tips and serve as the electrode. When the two fibers scrub together, mechanical motion is converted into electrical energy by the piezoelectric-semiconductor process.

So far, researchers have been able to produce a current of about 4 nanoamperes and a voltage output of about 4 millivolts from a 2 fiber nanogenerator that was about 1 centimeter long. Researchers estimate that with a much improved design, that as much as 80 milliwatts of power could be generated from a square meter of fabric made of the special fibers

Right now, one of the men leading this reasearch is Zhong Lin Wang, Regents professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology.

So far, there is already at least one major issue for this being implemented in clothing, and thats washing. Zinc oxide usually doesn’t do well when it comes into contact with water as it tends to break down. But there are still many other applications this could be applied to even but clothing isn’t  completely out of the picture yet.