Body heat harnessing jacket – Warm up while you power up

Alternative power that’s free to harness is going to be the rage in the future. Be it the wind-up mobile phone or the shoe charger. How about, adding a jacket that can charge your mobile or other gadgets on those cold days. The Berkeley Lab at UC Berkeley plans to lace silicon nanowires into a power-jacket. The excess heat from the human body would be used to recharge portable electronic devices, such as cell-phones, PSP’s and laptops. The process being developed is called “electroless etching,” where rough silicon nanowires are synthesized with silver ions on a flat wafer surface. These wafers would be woven into coats and the excess warmth given off by the body would be transformed into energy. The Berkeley Lab at UC Berkeley plans to lace silicon nanowires into a power-jacket. The excess heat from the human body would be used to recharge portable electronic devices, such as cell-phones, PSP’s and laptops.

The process being developed is called “electroless etching,” where rough silicon nanowires are synthesized with silver ions on a flat wafer surface. These wafers would be woven into coats and the excess warmth given off by the body would be transformed into energy. Thermoelectric materials have been around for a long time. Scientists are just beginning to find a way to make them efficient enough to prove practical. That’s because silicon is a poor conductor of heat at room temperature. The lab has found a solution, reduce the size of the nanowires and combine a flat surface with a heat conducting material. Let’s just hope this technology sees the light of day in those trendy clothes shops. What say GUCCI?
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