nuclear-news

New solar fabric will light up your clothes

Japan researchers invent solar-cell fabric, Herald Sun,  From: AAP  December 12, 2012 CLOTHES that could literally light up your life were unveiled Tuesday by Japanese researchers who said their solar-cell fabric would eventually let wearers harvest energy on the go.

The new fabric is made of wafer-thin solar cells woven together that
could see people powering up their mobile phones and other electronics
with their sweater or trousers.

But its creators conceded there was work to do before taking the
fabric to market.

“We still have things to solve before commercialisation, such as
coating for the conductive wires and improving the fabric’s
durability,” said an official at the Industrial Technology Center in
central Japan’s Fukui Prefecture.

“But we’ve already been contacted by electronics makers, blind makers
and others who showed interested in our invention.”

The centre developed the fabric with a Kyoto-based solar cell maker
and other private firms, the official said.

Solar power generation is attracting renewed attention in Japan as the
country looks to alternative energy sources in the aftermath of last
year’s tsunami-sparked atomic crisis, the worst nuclear accident in a
generation.

December 13, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | decentralised, Japan