Power shirt
-generates watts as you walk.
Power shirt
-generates watts as you walk
Abstract:
A microfibre fabric that generates
enough of its own electricity to
recharge a mobile phone or ensure
that an mp3 player never runs out of
power has been developed by US
scientists. A self-powering
nanosystem that harvests its
operating energy from the
environment is an attractive
proposition for sensing, personal
electronics and defence technologies.
This is in principle feasible for
nanodevices owing to their
extremely low power consumption.
Solar, thermal and mechanical (wind,
friction, body movement) energies human hair, embedded in the
are common and may be scavenged fabric.
from the environment.

If made into a shirt, the fabric could

harness power from its wearer
simply walking around or even from
a slight breeze. In this Technical
Paper we would like to discuss on
the Power Shirt, how it is related to
nanotechnology, its applications and
its drawbacks.

Introduction:
Two sets of Zinc oxide
The fibre-based nanogenerator
nanowires meet teeth to teeth,
would be a simple and
allowing the gold coated micro
economical way to harvest
fibres to scrub those not coated
energy from the physical
with gold. This generates
movement.
electricity by the so called Piezo-
Electric effect, the fundamental
Nanotechnology is the
concept behind “Power Shirt”.
engineering of functional
systems at the molecular
scale.

• The wires are formed into

In its original sense,
'nanotechnology' refers to the
projected ability to construct
items from the bottom up, using
techniques and tools being
developed today to make
complete, high performance
products.
Power Shirt works on the
principle of Nano generator.
The nanogenerator takes
advantage of the semiconductive
properties of zinc oxide
nanowires, tiny wires 1000 times
smaller than the width of a
pairs of microscopic brush-
like structures, shaped like a
baby-bottle brush.
• One of the fibres in each pair
is coated with gold and serves
as an electrode. As the bristles
brush together through a
person's body movement, the
wires convert the mechanical
motion into electricity.
• When a nanowire bends it has
an electric effect and what the
fabric does is it translates the
mechanical movement of your
body into electricity.
 Coating the Fibres:
Nanogenerator was made by first
coating fibres with a polymer and then a
layer of zinc oxide.
They it is dunked into a warm bath of
reactive solution for 12 hours. This
encouraged the wires to multiply coating
the fibres.
"They automatically grow on the surface
of the fibre, In principle, you could use
any fibre that is conductive."
Then another layer of polymer is added
to prevent the zinc oxide from being
scrubbed off. And they added an ultra-
thin layer of gold to some fibres, which
works as a conductor.
Could it be static?:
To ensure all that friction was not just
generating static electricity, the
researchers conducted several tests.
The fibres produced current only when
both the gold and the zinc oxide bristles
brushed together.
We can have up to 80 milliwatts per
square metre of this fabric. This is
enough to power a little iPod or charge a
[mobile] phone battery.
"What we've done is demonstrate the
principle and the fundamental
mechanism”.
Fundamental Principle:
The fundamental principle on which this
Power Shirt works is Piezo-Electric
effect.
Piezo-Electricity is the ability of some
materials to generate electric potential in
response to applied mechanical stress.
Examples:
Zinc oxide, topaz, quartz, lead titanate
etc...
Applications:
The material could be used by hikers and
soldiers in the field and also to power
tiny sensors used in biomedicine or
environmental monitoring.
Military sensing/surveillance node
placement, for example, may involve
difficult-to-reach locations, may
need to be hidden, and may be in
environments that are dusty,
rainy, dark and/or in deep forest.
In a moving vehicle or aeroplane,
harvesting energy from a rotating
tyre or wind blowing on the body is a
possible choice to power wireless
 devices implanted in the surface of
the vehicle.
Nanowire nanogenerators built on
hard substrates were demonstrated
for harvesting local mechanical
energy produced by high-frequency
ultrasonic waves.
One major hurdle remains: zinc
oxide degrades when wet .This is
because zinc oxide is sensitive to
moisture, so in real shirts or jackets,
the nanowires would have to be
protected from the effects of the
washing machine.

To harvest the energy from vibration

or disturbance originating from
footsteps, heartbeats, ambient noise
and air flow, it is important to
explore innovative technologies that
work at low frequencies (such as ,10
Hz) and that are based on flexible
soft materials.
Draw backs:
Conclusion:
This work establishes a methodology
for scavenging light-wind energy
and body-movement energy using
fabrics. In the words of the famous
researcher Zhong Lin Wang”The
fibre-based nanogenerator would be
a simple and economical way to
harvest energy from the physical
movement”.

References:

• http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/02/14/2162969.htm
• http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Articles/304590/Power+shirt.htm
• http:// www.gatech.edu
• http://www.nanoscience.gatech.edu/zlwang/paper/paperlist2008.html
• http://www.deviceguru.com/2008/02/16/the-ultimate-power-shirt/