Business & Technology | Power-generating clothes? Keep your shirt on | Seattle Times Newspaper

Business & Technology | Power-generating clothes? Keep your shirt on | Seattle Times Newspaper: "Scientists have developed a way to generate electricity by jostling fabric with tiny wires woven inside, raising the prospect of textiles that produce power simply by being stretched, rustled or ruffled by a breeze.

The research, described in the new edition of the journal Nature, combines the precision of nanotechnology with the elegant principle known as the piezoelectric effect, in which electricity is generated when pressure is applied to certain materials.
While the piezoelectric effect has been understood at least as far back as the 19th century, it is getting creative new looks, as concerns about energy supplies are inspiring quests for alternative power sources.

For example, a Japanese railway has experimented with mats, placed under turnstiles, that translate the pressure from thousands of commuters' footfalls into usable power. French scientists have proposed capturing energy from raindrops hitting a structure with piezoelectric properties.

For the research described in Nature, Zhong Lin Wang and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology covered individual fibers of fabric with nanowires made of zinc oxide. These wires are 50 nanometers in diameter, 1,800 times thinner than a human hair."