New clothing materials for outdoor sports charging

Imagine being able to charge small electronic devices while exercising in the warm sunshine. Isn't it cool?

Chinese and American researchers reported in a new issue of Scientific Progress in the United States on the 26th that they have developed a new type of smart clothing material that can simultaneously collect solar energy and human body mechanical energy from the environment, and it is expected to be used for wearable in the future. The device even charges on the smartphone.

Professor Wang Zhonglin, chief scientist of the Institute of Nano Energy and Systems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor of the Georgia Institute of Technology, told Xinhua that wearable electronic devices have shown great potential to replace traditional electronic products. However, due to short battery life, applications are limited. The solution they proposed was to integrate the self-powered system directly into the wearable electronic system.

Wang Zhonglin said that some studies have made lightweight photovoltaic cell materials into fibrous fabrics, but photovoltaic cells need to work under sufficient illumination, and the working conditions depend on external conditions such as weather. In the new study, they combined existing friction nanogenerators to develop a composite fabric system that simultaneously collects and stores human motor energy.

First, they made dye-sensitized solar cells based on polymer materials into fiber materials to convert solar energy into electricity. Second, they use supercapacitors to store energy, and supercapacitors are also made into fibrous materials. Then, the electrodes and the friction layer material were plated on the surfaces of the two materials.

Wang Zhonglin said: "When people exercise, the two fibers will move to each other. By the principle of friction nano-generators, the energy generated by human motion can be converted into electrical energy."

He said that all kinds of devices are made of flexible structural materials, which can show good output performance at different bending angles. Therefore, the above devices can be arbitrarily combined and woven into different shapes and styles.

In the test, the newly developed self-powered braided short-sleeved T-shirt can drive small electronic devices such as LEDs and sensors. Wang Zhonglin said that they will continue to improve the braid to reduce production costs and improve energy conversion efficiency, thus directly charging more powerful wearable electronic devices and even smart phones.