Electrically Heated Clothing, Electricity From Body Movements Making News
Researchers at UMass Amherst have good news for commuters, skiers, crossing guards and other people who have to work outside in the winter — three-layered gloves that can keep fingers toasty warm for up to 8 hours. The layer in the middle is made of 3,4-ethylenedioxytiophene, otherwise known as PEDOT. It conducts electricity and is powered by a tiny battery that weighs only 1.8 grams. To put that in perspective, a dime weighs 2.27 grams.
Electrically Heated Clothing
Trisha Andrews, one of the authors of a new study announcing the breakthrough, says “We took a pair of cotton gloves and coated the fingers to allow a small amount of current to pass through, so they heat up. It’s regular old-fashioned cotton cloth. We chose to make a pair of gloves because the fingers require a high curvature that allows us to show that our material is really flexible.
“The glove is powered by a small coin battery and they run on nano-amps of current, not enough to pass current through your skin or to hurt you. Our coating works even when it’s completely dunked in water. It will not shock you and our layered construction means the conductive cloth does not come into contact with your skin.”
The team uses a process known as vapor deposition to nano-coat one layer of fabric. The resulting cloth can by sewn or woven just like regular cotton.
Andrews says,
“Lightweight, breathable and body-conformable electrical heaters have the potential to change traditional approaches to personal thermal management, medical heat therapy, joint pain relief and athletic rehabilitation. We hope to have this reach consumers as a real product in the next few years. Maybe it will be two years to a prototype, and five years to the consumer. I think this is the most consumer-ready device we have. It’s ready to take to the next phase.”
Making Electricity By Walking
Other researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany are finding new ways to generate small amounts of electricity from body motion. The resulting current can be used to power smartphones, MP3 players, electronic devices such as pulse monitors, or medical equipment such as pacemakers and insulin pumps.
“If you want to harvest the energy produced by movements of the body, the challenge lies in the requirement that this power generation must not demand any additional power input by the user,” says Christian Pylatiuk of the Institute for Applied Informatics (IAI). He and his team have developed two systems that meet this requirement — one uses the weight of the body during walking and one worn on the wrist like a watch.
In the first device, a small chamber filled with oil is installed under the heel and the ball of the foot. Walking causes the oil to be pumped back and forth between the cushions via a hose like a miniaturized tidal power plant. The movement of the foot while walking or running drives a piston which then turns a small generator.
The wrist device comes with special technical challenges. “Unlike a clockwork, where energy is stored by a gyrating mass cocking a spring, an induction motor is used in this case in which an eccentric element moves a magnet back and forth in a coil.” Its maximum power of 2.2 milliwatts is not enough to power a hearing aid or charge a smartphone. However, “we are currently working on a more powerful consumer version,” says Pylatiuk. He expects the improved version to be ready by the end of the year.
Now, if someone could merge the body powered generator with the electrically heated gloves, people who live in cold climates might actually look forward to winter!
Source: U Mass Amherst and Karlsruhl Institute of Technology
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