A Wake Forest physics professor is changing the way we capture energy. David Carroll and his team at the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials have invented a material that New York Times Magazine calls the number one "innovation that will change your tomorrow."
"Power felt is a fabric and if you provide a temperature gradient across it, from the front to the back, then it generates a voltage and a current," Carroll says. "It's made basically the same way you make felt. It uses a nanomaterial to help enhance the conduction and the thermal electric voltage that it produces. It uses very, very little of those nanomaterials so nothing can hurt the environment. By the time you're done, it costs a little bit more than polyester."
Using thermal volts to create energy, Carroll says that power felt could be a supplement or replacement for solar panels. By covering objects which generate heat, the material could be used to lengthen a cell phone battery, power an extra outlet for the car, or on a larger scale, perhaps run the electrical system on an airplane. While the technology is ready to use, the business of making and selling power felt is still being negotiated. When it is ready, Carroll says it will seamlessly become a part of our lives.
Carroll says, "Things that change the way we live are things that can find their way into ubiquitous and invisible use." "This doesn't stand out as a new widget that makes lots of power and replaces all the power stations in the country. This is something that every home will eventually have in it, and you won't know it's there. It will do things tomorrow that you will take for granted tomorrow."
What's next for this innovator? Harnessing the power of pokeweed berries as an agrisolar product.
