These sleek clothes can invisibly power your phone

It is becoming increasingly clear that the fashion industry is accelerating climate change and emitting 4% of all global CO2 emissions. But maybe our clothing could soon be redesigned to actively reduce our carbon footprint.

A team of researchers from Aalto University in Finland is working to make this vision a reality. They developed a technique for embedding textiles using invisible solar panels that serve as a source of energy for portable devices or telephones. This would allow designers to create solar powered clothing without changing the aesthetics of the outfit. The researchers believe these garments could reduce our need for traditional energy sources, most of which emit greenhouse gases.

[Photo: courtesy Elina Ilén]Elina Ilén, who led the Sun-Powered Textiles project, has spent two decades developing wearable technologies. However, one problem that kept popping up is that electronic devices embedded in clothing require a power source. In the early years, users had to put their clothes - or a battery in their clothes - in to charge them. More recently, companies have layered solar panels on clothing, but Ilén did not find this practical. "Only a small group of people want to wear clothes that have obvious solar panels on them that make them look like robots," she tells Fast Company. "We wanted to create an invisible source of energy in textiles so that they look like normal clothing."

The team has teamed up with physicists from Aalto University to develop ultra-thin solar modules that can be incorporated into virtually any textile, from cotton to linen to viscose to polyester - they just need to be sewn between two layers of fabric. "These solar panels would work in clothing, but also in home textiles," says Ilén. "You can imagine that curtains or sofas gain energy from light and thus drive devices."

[Photo: courtesy Elina Ilén]Ilén says the solar panels can get energy from artificial light, although sunlight is more effective. And the amount of energy collected depends on many factors, including the type of solar cells used and the nature of the material. (Ilén says that woven fabrics with gaps on the surface tend to be better because light can more easily penetrate the material and reach the solar panel.) But as a rough estimate, she says that four to six hours in the sun could fully charge a smartphone . Devices could either be tucked into a pocket in the garment or the garment could be equipped with wireless charging technology.

The team at Solar-Powered Textiles created prototypes of garments that were displayed at Helsinki Design Week as part of an exhibition called Designs for a Cooler Planet. But Ilén says it would be pretty easy to commercialize these new materials. Mills and fashion brands don't have to fundamentally change their fabrics; you could simply sew the solar cells under the outer layer of fabric. The solar panel was designed to be very thin and flexible and covered with a layer of fabric so that when it is integrated into a T-shirt it feels soft on the skin. Ilén says the team deliberately designed the solar panels to be separate from the fabric so that the two can be taken apart and recycled separately. "We know recycling is already a big challenge in the fashion industry, and we didn't want to add to that problem," she says.

In the short term, Ilén said, this technology is likely to appeal to companies that make wearable devices in clothing, such as sportswear brands that want to embed heart rate monitors. But ultimately, she envisions a world in which many textiles are embedded with solar panels that extract energy from the sun to power our everyday devices. If this technology scaled, it could reduce our reliance on traditional power sources. "That way," she says, "fashion could be a force for good on the planet, rather than pollution."

continue reading https://dailytechnonewsllc.com/these-sleek-clothes-can-invisibly-power-your-phone/?feed_id=3739&_unique_id=61bdf84e51c4e