Could this truly be

in your future? Imagine during your jog that your pants are recharging and powering your phone, or your shirt is juicing up your iPod. In other words, the more energy you yourself expend, the more power you create!

I was recently alerted to this concept by the knee-brace that can power up to 30 minutes of typical mobile phone usage. To wit:

US and Canadian scientists have built a novel device that effortlessly harvests energy from human movements.

The adapted knee brace, outlined in the journal Science, can generate enough energy to power a mobile phone for 30 minutes from one minute of walking…

The new device generates power by a process known as “generative braking”, analogous to the braking systems found in hybrid-electric cars such as the Toyota Prius.

“Walking is a lot like stop-and-go driving,” explained Dr Max Donelan of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, lead author of the paper.

“Within each stride muscles are continuously accelerating and decelerating the body.

Hybrid electric cars take advantage of stop-and-go driving using so-called “regenerative braking” where the energy normally dissipated as heat is used to drive a generator.

“We have essentially applied the same principle to walking.” ….MORE….

Well! It was just reported that piezoelectric fabric that generates power through the bending of its component threads could harvest useful amounts of power from a wearer’s body motions.

Cool, eh?

Some more information:

… In tests with just two short fibres, Wang’s team was able to generate a few picowatts of power, but they found that the power output increased 50-fold when three pairs of fibres are twined together into a yarn, increasing the area of contact.

Wang estimates that the fabric should be capable of generating about 80 milliwatts of electricity per square metre, enough to charge a cellphone battery or other personal electronics from the ordinary motions of a shirt or a curtain blowing in the wind….MORE…

I can just imagine - power up your pants enough, and it will force you to do your walking for you.

ThankYouVeryMuch!

Owlbert

ps - need some spare cost-conscious rechargers?

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