Because the demand for sustainable energy is rapidly increasing, fabrics have been in development that can generate electricity from physical movement for a few years now.
However, according to reports in the Nature Energy on September 12th 2016, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have began development of a new hybrid fabric that will stand to generate electricity.
The fabric will do this by simultaneously harnessing energy from sunlight and wind.The fabric is a one which is made up of photovoltaic and triboelectric nanogenerators, converting mechanical energy into electricity.
Zhong Lin Wang, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering, said “this hybrid power textile presents a novel solution to charging devices in the field from something as simple as the wind blowing on a sunny day”.
While we don’t know how long it will take for this fabric to be fully developed, it’s definitely an exciting prospect for our future. What this means for the mechanical and electrical field? Only time will tell!
