One of my pet peeves in life is when my Rock Band wireless guitar runs out of battery juice mid-way through a song. Yes, I’m well aware that isn’t much of a pet-peeve, but hey, it’s annoying. If new research is any indication, I may be able to plug the guitar into my t-shirt and eek out a little more time.
Scientists have successfully turned ordinary fabrics like polyester and cotton into batteries without hindering the flexibility of the fabric. Basically, fabric is dipped into an “ink” of microscopic carbon tubes and what follows is magic:
The idea is the same as that outlined in their work with plain paper; the interwoven fibers of fabrics, like those of paper, are particularly suited to absorbing the nanotube ink, maintaining an electrical connection across the whole area of a garment.
Cloth is simply dipped into a batch of nanotube dye, and is then pressed, to thin and even out the coating.
The fabric maintains its properties even as it is stretched or folded. Even rinsing the samples in water and wringing them out does not change their electronic properties.
“Our approach is easy and low-cost while producing great performance,” Professor Cui told BBC News.
“Fabrics and paper represent two technologies with a thousand-year-old history. We combined ‘high-tech’ – nanotechnology – with traditional ‘low-tech’ to produce new applications.”
The next step is to integrate the approach with materials that store more energy, in order to create more useful batteries. By combining the approach with other electronic materials in the ink, the team believes even wearable solar cells are possible.
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