On a fairly regular basis researchers publish new findings around power generating textiles, a topic highly interesting for the wearable electronic community.

This time engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, created energy generating nanofibers that could one day be woven into textiles.

The nano-sized generators work on the ‘piezoelectric’ principle, converting kinetic energy through stretches and twists into electricity.

Sounds fabulous as the textiles of our clothing stretches and twists all day when worn.

‘This technology could eventually lead to wearable smart clothes that can power hand-held electronics through ordinary body movements,’ said Liwei Lin, UC Berkeley professor of mechanical engineering and head of the international research team that developed the fiber nanogenerators.

The nanofibers are made from organic polyvinylidene fluoride, or PVDF, they are flexible and relatively easy and cheap to manufacture.

Oh yeah, in almost all of these announcements, this new technology is easy and cheaply to manufacture. We heard this from flexible solar cells as well some years back but up until today, the cheap factor has not materialized.

It’s always exiting to see advances in developments and research but all this has to be taken with a (very) long term view as such break-through discoveries, although they seems simple to make, can take a long time to become robust enough to produce in quantities and then to become affordable to be actually used in everyday objects like clothing.

Let’s put the Fiber Nanogenerators on our watch-list but move on with technologies and materials we have today and use them smartly to create smart clothes now.

[source: Science Daily]

In the business world, Power-Dress means getting a ‘professional looking’ outfit, not to catchy, not to low profile. Your outfit should show you are in charge.

In Wearable Electronic, Power-Dress has a different meaning, it actually generates power which in turn can be used to power Blackberries, iPhones and so forth. Point in case: Amanda Parkes’ and Adam Kumpf’s Piezing dress.

The Piezing dress generates power using the natural movement of the human body. The fabric around the joints is woven with piezoelectric film fibers which convert mechanical strain, created during the fabric’s movement, into electrical power while the wearer moves around.

With a positive charge on one side and a negative charge on the other, the piezoelectric material creates a voltage when it is deformed like bent or twisted. An integrated rectifier circuit connects the strips to capacitors which store electrical charge and feed the electrical power to the coin batteries disguised as buttons.

The creative power behind the Piezing, Amanda Parkes and Adam Kumpf  are grad students at MIT Media Lab.

Their Piezing power-dress was part of a runway fashion show last Friday at the ‘2nd Skin: Imaginative Designs in Digital & Analog Clothing’ at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

The Piezing design concept is extending the growing list of wearable power concepts. Although the electricity generated in this way might not be able to power an MP3 player or cell phone, it will be sufficient for sensors monitoring heart rate or other biometric parameters interesting for fitness and sport enthusiasts.

While the necessary clothing movement to make the Piezing concept work might not be sufficient in street wear it will work fine in sports clothing where movement is an essential part.

A brilliant idea using piezo material to power future clothing which will be populated with electronic functions to form a second skin extending our senses beyond the passive clothing we wear today.

[news.com via textually.org]