Communications of the ACM
Clothing the Body Electric
Xiaodong Li, foreground, demonstrates the flexibility of a swatch of activated carbon textile.
Credit: University of South Carolina
Electronics will be part of our wardrobe in the future, says University of South Carolina professor Xiaodong Li, who has turned the material in a cotton T-shirt into a source of electrical power. "One day our cotton T-shirts could have more functions; for example, a flexible energy storage device that could charge your cell phone or your iPad," Li says.
Working with post-doctoral associate Lihong Bao, Li soaked a T-shirt in a solution of fluoride, dried it, and baked it at high temperature in an oven without oxygen. The surfaces of the resulting fibers in the fabric converted from cellulose to activated carbon. The material was still flexible, and could be folded without breaking.
The team used small swatches of the fabric as an electrode to show that the flexible material acts as a capacitor, and then coated the individual fibers in the activated carbon textile with nanoflowers of manganese oxide to enhance the electrode performance of the fabric and create a stable, high-performing supercapacitor.
The hybrid supercapacitors were resilient, and the overall process was inexpensive and green. "By stacking these supercapacitors up, we should be able to charge portable electronic devices such as cell phones," Li says.
From University of South Carolina
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