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Power-Generating Clothing Is Only 3 Years Away

Your classy new threads really will be electrifying.

Could you soon be powering your iPod with your T-shirt? You can file that one under “hell yeah.” Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology led by Zhong Lin Wang have successfully created nanogenerators. Using tiny nanowires, these generators are capable of harvesting electricity from, say, the movement of your clothes as you walk, or the impact of your shoe hitting the ground. And while they’re not powerful enough at the moment, in about three to five years the output level needed to charge your personal music player, a mobile phone, or somebody’s pacemaker, will be reached.

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From the University website:
Wang’s nanogenerators rely on the piezoelectric effect seen in crystalline materials such as zinc oxide, in which an electric charge potential is created when structures made from the material are flexed or compressed. By capturing and combining the charges from millions of these nanoscale zinc oxide wires, Wang and his research team can produce as much as three volts — and up to 300 nanoamps.

[via Georgia Tech]