00:03It might look like something straight out of Tron, but this is actually a new high-tech
00:07wearable that might someday power your smartphone. It's what the nanoengineers from the University
00:11of California, San Diego behind the project call a wearable microgrid. The system uses
00:16triboelectric generators to harvest energy from body movement as well as biofuel cells
00:21to gather and store energy derived from sweat. And the whole thing is flexible and washable.
00:26This is what nanoengineer and one of the wearable microgrid's creators, Lu Yin, had to say about
00:31the device. Just like a city microgrid integrates a variety of local renewable power sources like
00:36wind and solar, a wearable microgrid integrates devices that locally harvest energy from different
00:40parts of the body, like sweat and movement, while containing energy storage. The biofuel
00:44sweat collection cells are located where you might sweat the most, on the torso portion of the shirt's
00:49chest, and the triboelectric generators gather movement energy from the forearms passing by
00:53the waist of the wearable, as the two oppositely charged portions rub against one another.
00:58And when both are used in tandem, the creators say the triboelectric generators begin providing
01:02power as soon as the user starts moving, and when they eventually break a sweat, the biofuel
01:06cells provide continuous power long after movement has stopped.
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