Wake Forest University research on Power Felt, a promising new thermoelectric device, appears in the current issue of Nano Letters, a leading journal in nanotechnology.
Potential uses for Power Felt include lining automobile seats to boost battery power and service electrical needs, insulating pipes or collecting heat under roof tiles to lower gas or electric bills, lining clothing or sports equipment to monitor performance, or wrapping IV or wound sites to better track patients’ medical needs.
Comprised of tiny carbon nanotubes locked up in flexible plastic fibers and made to feel like fabric, Power Felt uses temperature differences – room temperature versus body temperature, for instance – to create a charge.
Power Felt has been developed by researchers in Wake Forest's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials.
