Turning streetwear into solar power plants by Staff Writers Dubendorf, Switzerland (SPX) Oct 23, 2020
Our hunger for energy is insatiable, it even continues to rise with the increasing supply of new electronic gadgets. What's more, we are almost always on the move and thus permanently dependent on a power supply to recharge our smartphones, tablets and laptops. In the future, power sockets (at least for this purpose) could possibly become obsolete. The electricity would then come from our own clothes. By means of a new polymer that is applied on textile fibers, jackets, T-shirts and the like could soon function as solar collectors and thus as a mobile energy supply. Materials capable of using indirect or ambient light for energy generation are already being used in the solar industry. These materials contain special luminescent materials and are called "Luminescent Solar Concentrators", or LSC for short. The luminescent materials in the LSC capture diffuse ambient light and transmit its energy to the actual solar cell, which then converts light into electrical energy. However, LSCs are currently only available as rigid components and are unsuitable for use in textiles because they are neither flexible nor permeable to air and water vapor. An interdisciplinary research team led by Luciano Boesel from the Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles has now succeeded in incorporating several of these luminescent materials into a polymer that provides precisely this flexibility and air permeability.
Well-known polymer with sophisticated properties "The reason we chose exactly this polymer is the fact that we are capable of incorporating two immiscible luminescent materials at the nano scale and let them interact with each other. There are, of course, other polymers, in which these materials could be integrated; but this would lead to aggregation, and the production of energy would thus not be possible", explains Boesel.
Bright solar concentrators for clothing Just as on large-scale (rigid) collectors, the luminescent materials capture a much wider spectrum of light than is possible with conventional photovoltaics. The novel solar concentrators can be applied to textile fibers without the textile becoming brittle and susceptible to cracking or accumulating water vapor in the form of sweat. Solar concentrators worn on the body offer an immense benefit for the ever-increasing demand for energy, especially for portable devices.
Studying new solar tracking strategies to maximize electric production Cordoba, Spain (SPX) Oct 20, 2020 From making a small calculator work to generating energy to produce the entire output of an important brewery, solar energy has been undergoing significant growth in recent years, taking the place of nonrenewable energy resources that negatively affect the environment. In addition to producing clean energy, solar plants can be adapted to different sizes and allow for self-consumption. Over the last few years, their profitability as compared to other kinds of energy has become increasingly greater ... read more
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