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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the please-fold-and-spindle dept.

https://www.azonano.com/news.aspx?newsID=35778

An international team of scientists headed by researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas and Hanyang University in South Korea have created high-tech yarns with the ability to produce electricity upon being twisted or stretched. The scientists have reported on these "twistron" yarns and their prospective uses (e.g. tapping energy from temperature fluctuations as well as from oceanic wave motion) in an article published in the Science journal on 25 August 2017. The yarns, upon being sewn into clothing, functioned as a self-powered breathing monitor.

[...] For producing electricity, the yarns have to be immersed in or coated with an ionically conducting material (i.e. electrolyte) which can simply be a blend of common table salt and water. According to Haines, upon stretching or twisting a carbon nanotube harvester yarn, its volume gets reduced, thereby causing the electric charges on the yarn to be closer together and increasing their energy. This in turn increases the voltage intrinsic to the charge deposited in the yarn, thus allowing the electricity to be tapped.

[...] Laboratory experiments performed by the scientists demonstrated that a twistron yarn with weight less than that of a housefly can be used to power up a small LED which was lit up every time the yarn was stretched. In order to demonstrate that the twistrons have the ability to tap waste thermal energy from the environment, Li connected the twistron yarn to an artificial muscle made of polymer with the ability to contract and expand upon being heated and cooled. The twistron harvester transformed the mechanical energy produced by the polymer muscle into electrical energy.

Also at IEEE and UT Dallas.

Harvesting electrical energy from carbon nanotube yarn twist (DOI: 10.1126/science.aam8771) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday August 29 2017, @11:48PM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Tuesday August 29 2017, @11:48PM (#561226) Journal

    ...with tiny little tweezers?

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
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