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Researchers are developing textiles capable of converting sweat into energy and thus powering small portable connected objects, such as connected bracelets or watches.
Unit engineers Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies (BEST) from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, are working on an entirely new type of flexible supercapacitor capable of storing energy by collecting human sweat. The idea would thus be to power wearables, by the simple sweat of its user. With the equivalent of only 20 microliters (or 20 thousandths of a milliliter) of liquid, it would thus be possible to operate a small connected object. A jogger or trekker could thus be rewarded for their efforts by naturally recharging their bracelet or connected watch.
The assembly is currently composed of a particularly absorbent polyester/cellulose fabric, covered with a thin layer of polymer serving here as an electrode for the supercapacitor. According to the first laboratory tests, this solution would be robust enough to survive 4000 bending cycles.
Sweat could therefore fuel a next generation of portable devices, even if, for the moment, everything happens in the laboratory. It is nevertheless possible to imagine a whole host of scenarios, from the continuously recharged connected watch to the LED headband to be seen at night. It is also useless to specify that such a solution proves to be both much more economical and above all ecological than the use of a conventional Lithium-ion battery or a simple battery.
Note that this same research unit is working on other foldable technologies, in particular a kind of solar-powered electronic skin that could be used for prostheses. Their research on the energy created by sweat could also fuel this project.