Sustainability Spotlight, October 2020 - The Power of Sweat
Many of us benefit from the growing range of innovative digital devices we use, carry or wear. However, it's clearly evidenced how environmentally unfriendly convential batteries for these items are, not to mention the contribution using and re-charging them makes to our carbon footprints.
Prof Ravinder Dahiya, Leader of UofG's Bendable Electronics and Sensing Tech (BEST) Group and Director of the Electronic Systems Design Centre (ESDC), has been working on one aspect of this problem with colleagues: "Sweat to Power Wearables". Yes, that is how it sounds: your sweat could power your wearable devices.
On October 14th 2020, Prof Joseph Wang, Director of the UCSD Centre of Wearable Sensors is giving the ESDC Annual Lecture 2020. Sign up on Eventbrite!
From the description of the YouTube video below: "In the new type of flexible supercapacitor (SC) shown here, the toxic electrolytes found in conventional batteries is replaced with sweat. The SC can be fully charged with as little as 20 microlitres of fluid and is robust enough to survive 4,000 cycles of bends, which [it] might encounter in real-world use."