Piezo electrical materials! Odds are that you haven’t heard that anything of that name even exists. However, these materials might just be the panacea for low juice in the electronic devices that humans have become so dependent on.
According to a latest report, Australian researchers are trying to incorporate these materials in shirts. And since these materials are capable of converting mechanical energy to electrical energy and vice versa, it means that the shirts would generate electricity whenever the wearer moves.
The CSIRO project - recently granted $4.4 million by the Defence Department - is headed by Dr. Adam Best and he is very optimistic about the potential of his research. He hopes to weave a shirt from piezo materials and then allow vibrations made by the wearer generate electricity. He also wishes to weave flexible and chargeable batteries into the shirts that would act as storehouse of the current produced.
Further, if somehow flexible circuit boards of mobiles were also to be added to the fabric of the shirt, people would be able to talk into their callers. Realization of all this could, however, take up to the next five years or so.
If military was to keep pumping dollars into the research there’s a reason to be more optimistic. The energy crunch would then become a thing of the past. Godspeed Dr. Best, Godspeed!
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