"power shirts." nanowires

[powercat]

A team of researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology is pioneering a new form of generating power from human movement: "power shirts."
The group of researchers has conjectured that one square meter of this new fabric, less than the amount in a men's long-sleeved shirt, could generate as much 80 milliwatts of energy
.www.bcheights.com/media/storage/paper144/news/2008/02/14/Marketplace/Health.Science.Introducing.power.Shirts-3209401.shtml//
nanotechnology is maybe to much for this forum
,intresting anyway

pc

[powercat]

sorry hyperink moved now you need to login so i will posting the article

Health & Science: Introducing: 'power shirts' Published in the Thursday, February 14, 2008 Edition of  By Paul Symansky

In countries with free and mixed markets, nothing excites the human mind like the word "free." We've been trained to believe that free things are good things. For instance, a free car or a free house are extraordinarily good things. What about free energy? Free energy, seemingly creating power from nothing, would be good - if it existed. The first law of thermodynamics bluntly states that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Nevertheless, many who are undeterred by the laws of physics have fruitlessly pursued free energy and perpetual motion machines for ages. Watchmaker Rolex, and later Seiko, stirred public attention when they released lines of watches that never require winding or batteries. The concept was novel not because they had successfully tapped a free energy source, but because they tapped a previously unharnessed energy source. As the watch wearers go about their affairs, their normal movements cause a small, lopsided weight within the watch to move. That weight is attached to a shaft, which is in turn attached to numerous gears to amplify the motion. In many of Rolex's early models, that motion was directly applied to a spring to store the energy. In Seiko's later models, the motion was transferred into electrical energy through a tiny electrical generator.

The concept is brilliant; discreetly and undetectably siphon off kinetic energy from a person's regular movements. Clearly human power is nothing new, as humans have powered everything from grain mills to aircraft. The key is to redirect otherwise wasted energy that would be transferred into useless heat or annoying static shocks.

One team of researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology is pioneering a new form of generating power from human movement: "power shirts." The power shirt generates electricity through the movement that a standard garment would regularly endure. Imperceptibly extracting energy means that the underlying mechanisms must either be very small, very light, or both. Once again, nanotechnology fits the bill. The researchers have implemented nanowires embedded in Kevlar fibers to make tough fabrics that could one day help ease the burden on battery packs that soldiers carry, power portable consumer electronics, or even capture wind energy through sails. The fibers have zinc oxide wires, described as having a final structure similar to a bottlebrush, grown within them to serve as electrodes.
The fibers are then grouped in pairs, and one out of each pair is coated in gold before being woven into a fabric. The technology takes advantage of the piezoelectric effect: the ability of certain materials to generate electricity once mechanically compressed. Conversely, if electricity is applied to the material, it will expand or contract. Thus, the nanowires in this new fabric rub against each other and produce minute amounts of electrical current; the Kevlar substrate ensures the wires aren't damaged. If the wires were configured in certain ways, their output in terms of voltage and amperage could be amplified significantly.

The group of researchers has conjectured that one square meter of this new fabric, less than the amount in a men's long-sleeved shirt, could generate as much 80 milliwatts of energy. That's enough to essentially double the battery life of many modern portable electronics. With ever-decreasing power needs, just wearing a shirt could keep all of your electronics powered indefinitely.

This fledgling field is very new and also very exciting. As electronics become further integrated into our daily lives, powering them will always be a concern. Fortunately, the brilliant minds of researchers all over the world are helping to ease our energy crises. The only current downside to this nanowire/Kevlar fabric is that its sensitive to water, so don't plan on washing your power shirt.

pc

[Pirate88179]

This is interesting.  I read about this somewhere else.  My first thought was that you could hang large amounts of this material on a "clothes line" and let the wind do the moving for you.  Possibly even make sail boat sails from it to charge batteries on board.  It seems to me that it would take very little wind to move the material which would make it ideal for areas with low prevailing winds.  Not a lot of power here but, if you scale it up, who knows?

Bill

[powercat]

Nanowires are the new electric efficiency that may get us overunity

Nanowire battery can hold 10 times the charge of existing lithium-ion battery
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908

pc

[Pirate88179]

I also read where nano-tech is increasing solar cell output by an order of magnitude.  I'll see if I can dig up the link, don't remember exactly where I read it.

Bill

PS  Great link. I am glad you posted it.