Electricity-producing material could turn clothes into phone chargers

World
Europe

We may someday be able to charge our smartphones with our clothes, thanks to a new material being studied at a Chinese university.

A research team at Southeast University of China found that a piezoelectric material generates electrical charge when stretched or extruded.

Basically, it transfers pressure into electric power.

VCG Photo

Phones could be charged simply through the everyday action of brushing up against clothes. And it could help minimize the size of electronic products.

This kind of material has existed for a long time, but this latest developed type is organic, giving it useful qualities.

"Current inorganic piezoelectric materials are too stiff to be put on thin films or electronic components, because they are composed of ceramics," said researcher You Yumeng.

"Also, the flexible films and most electronic components get ruined in the extremely high temperatures under which those materials are made."

Campus of Southeast University. /VCG Fi‍le Photo

Although organic piezoelectric material compensates for these disadvantages, its poor piezoelectricity qualities usually would be a limit in real use.

But this new material has the same piezoelectricity level as ceramic materials, not to mention it's cheaper and environmentally-friendly.

The research on this new material was published in Science magazine on July 21.

Producing a better piezoelectric material has perplexed scientists worldwide for 130 years.

(CGTN intern Zhou Jingwen contributed to this story.)