Body Heat Your Phone Up to Talk More
Utilizing the versatility of thermoelectric components, the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Material at Wake Forest University has developed a ‘power felt’ that can harness energy from body heat to charge phones. This product is absolutely a breakthrough in the gadget charging arena and can amass world wide sales in days after official launch.
This new material works by making use of temperature differences. That is the difference between the temperature outside on a cold day and the heat generated by your body is used to create an electric charge, using which phones can be charged.
A hypothetical pair of Power Felt pants would be made of tiny carbon nanotubes contained in flexible plastic fibers. According toWakeForest, the fabric could also be used to line car seats, insulate pipes or collect heat under roof tiles.
It’s all part of a field called thermoelectrics, which has been a research subject for the past decade, but traditionally very expensive, costing as much as $1,000 per kilogram.
The researchers at Wake Forest hope to get the price down to $1 for enough fabric to cover an item such as a cell phone cover.
The technique, of course, is to make clothing that someone might actually want to wear. Researchers have been toying with photovoltaic fabrics for awhile, but so far almost every piece of solar-powered clothing has featured stiff, photovoltaic strips that only Robocop or Iron Man would put on.
In addition to the obvious convenience factor, lead researcher David Carroll said the material might be useful in urgent situations such as an emergency kit, or charging system for a flashlight or a weather radio and stuff like that.
