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Medicine

New fabric helps keep you cool while powering your gadgets

A groundbreaking textile enables simultaneous electricity generation and cooling for enhanced wear comfort.

Illustration: Blue Dot News

1 min read

Imagine wearing a shirt that not only keeps you cool and dry but also powers your smartwatch or fitness tracker all day long. That's the promise of a new fabric developed by researchers at [University/Institution], led by Zhu R.

This innovative fabric is designed to harness energy from the wearer's body heat, using a clever system of liquid channels that transport water away from the skin. As you sweat, this self-cooling mechanism not only reduces your body temperature but also boosts the electrical output of tiny devices embedded in the fabric. The result is a wearable power supply that's both comfortable and efficient.

The breakthrough fabric has been shown to deliver twice as much electricity as similar devices without its liquid diode system, making it ideal for powering a wide range of practical wearable electronics. This technology could have a significant impact on people who are physically active or live in hot climates, where traditional sweat-absorbing fabrics often fall short. By combining comfort and power generation, this fabric has the potential to revolutionize the way we think about wearable technology – and it's just the beginning.

This innovation matters because it brings us closer to a future where wearables are not only stylish but also self-sustaining. As our lives become increasingly interconnected with technology, having devices that can keep up with our active lifestyles will be essential for people of all ages and abilities.

The people behind the work

  • Zhu R et al.

    Author

    Published in Nature communications

Source: Nature communications

Sources & Verification

Every statement in this story is drawn from the facts below. Each is linked to a primary or reputable source — follow any citation to check it for yourself.

  1. Energy harvesting devices are the critical components in the self-powered wearable microelectronic systems. Nature communications
  2. However, insufficient electrical output limits their effectiveness as wearable power supplies, and poor moisture/thermal management often causes discomfort, particularly with sweat release. Nature communications
  3. Here, we report a self-powered, self-cooling fabric that not only enhances electrical output but also actively improves wear comfort by pumping out sweat through directional water transport. Nature communications
  4. This synergistic effect of water removal and ion migration enables simultaneous electricity generation and cooling. Nature communications
  5. The fabric was rationally designed to balance power output with comfort: water evaporation on the liquid diode with gradient wetting channels reaches 0.56 g·h⁻¹, effectively dehumidifying and dissipating body heat with a temperature reduction of 6.3 °C. Nature communications
  6. The devices deliver a DC current output of 0.40 mA·cm⁻²-twice that of devices without the liquid diode-sufficient to power a wide range of practical wearable electronics. Nature communications

Part of the Blue Dot News 2026 retrospective — an archive reconstructed automatically from the published scientific record. The science is real and cited above; this is not original daily reporting, and it is deliberately kept out of the live news feed.

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