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Tuesday, 7th July 2009 (1241 views)

Gold is playing a key role in the development of nanowires that could eventually be woven into clothing, tents or other structures to generate electrical power from movement, it has been reported.

Dr Zhong Lin Wang of the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology told AboutNanowires that gold-coated nanowires are paired with fibres coated in zinc oxide to generate the charge.

The gold is essential to the process, as it acts as a Schottky barrier with the zinc oxide nanowire to generate the electric charge, the site noted.

So far, researchers have produced an output voltage of about four millivolts using a pair of nanowires that were each one centimetre long.

With improved design, Dr Wang estimates that a square metre of fabric woven from the fibres could produce up to 80 milliwatts of power.

Integrating these fabrics into clothing could generate power for small electrical devices from body movement, providing soldiers in the field or hikers in remote locations with a renewable source of energy, he added.

Dr Wang is the founding director of the Georgia Institute of Technology's Centre on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

 

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