Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
If you’re looking to save on energy bills this winter, researchers from Stanford University have developed a new type of nanowire-coated fabric designed to keep you warm and your heater on low.
According to Popular Science, this new fabric was specially designed to conserve thermal energy by trapping heat inside a person’s clothing, eliminating the need to heat empty parts of a house. In theory, it could reduce a household heating bill to almost nothing.
Lead scientist Yi Cui of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford told PopSci that the team started their research by looking for a wearable method of keeping infrared radiation in a person’s body. While metal can make clothing reflect heat, Cui pointed out that a person isn’t going to want to dress in an outfit made entirely of metal.
Instead, the researchers developed a coating of easily bendable silver nanowires that can be placed on top of regular clothing. The fabric heats up the body in two ways:
1. The metal coating reflects infrared radiation emitted by a person’s body.
2. The fabric can conducts electricity to further heat/cook the wearer. (We kid.)
“The movement of electricity from an electrical device across the cloth creates Joules heating, or heat generated while crossing a current,” Popular Science said. The cloth is, “breathable enough to allow sweat to pass through it,” so that it remains comfortable. Yet, it’s also inexpensive to use, claims Cui. The amount of silver used in one item of clothing costs roughly $1.
This should save enough energy to power 1,000 light bulbs for 10 hours, adds Cui. The only problem is, the cloth probably won’t be available for several years, as silver nanowire is still undergoing health testing.
For now, the research team, who describes their work in a recent edition of the journal Nano Letters, plans to begin work on similar material that can go over clothing and can help keep a person cool during the hot summer months. If successful, their research could help reduce the amount of energy needed to heat and cool buildings throughout the entire year.
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