IIT Kharagpur Researchers Generate Electricity from Wet Clothes!
IIT Kharagpur researchers lit up an LED Bulb for 24 hours from electricity generated from wet clothes which is unheard of before. The lead researcher, Mr Suman Chakraborty said that it can be useful in rural areas.
It will be not only surprising but also weird if someone tells you that the clothes you just washed and hanged can generate electricity for your household things! This has been made a reality in the Indian Institute of Technology - IIT Kharagpur. The researchers have found that the electricity generated from a wet cloth in 24 hours can light up a white bulb for maximum an hour.
An official circular from the research team of IIT KGP informed about the findings on Thursday, 19th September 2019. The research was conducted in a rural village of West Bengal where 50 wet clothes were hanged to dry in 3000 square metres. After the clothes were connected to a super-capacitor, they were able to generate 10 volts of electricity which is able to light a white LED bulb for 1 day.
According to the circular issued, the fabric is traditionally woven and cellulose-based. The fabric has a small channel network which was used to generate electricity. The head-researcher of the team, Mr Suman Chakraborty explains that the clothes we wear generally have a cellulose-based fabric among which, a nano-channel network is spread. Electrical signals use the ions of saltwater to travel through the nano-channel network of the fabric using the capillary process. The capillary process is similar to transporting water through vacuumed-pipes.
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Mr Chakraborty said that till now, it was unimaginable that a wet cloth hanged to dry in the natural condition is able to produce electricity. This method can be proven useful to light cost-efficient bulbs in rural villages of the country.
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