Power Felt generates electricity from body heat By Ben Coxworth
February 22, 2012 Some day, your jacket may be able to power
your iPod ... and no, I'm not talking about piezoelectric
fabrics (which generate electricity from movement-caused
pressure), nor am I talking about photovoltaic materials,
although both of those could probably do the job. Instead, your
jacket might be made out of a new thermoelectric material called
Power Felt, that converts temperature differences into
electrical voltage - in the case of the jacket, the difference
between its wind-cooled exterior and its body-warmed lining
might be all that was needed. Power Felt was created by a team
of researchers at North Carolina's Wake Forest University, led
by graduate student Corey Hewitt. The material is made up of
carbon nanotubes contained within flexible plastic fibers, and
reportedly feels like regular felt. Should you choose to feel
it, the temperature of your bare fingertip will be enough to
create a measurable current. Although thermoel