Tag Archives: Jayan Thomas

Solar-powered clothing

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This research comes from the University of Central Florida (US) and includes a pop culture reference to the movie “Back to the Future.”  From a Nov. 14, 2016 news item on phys.org,

Marty McFly’s self-lacing Nikes in Back to the Future Part II inspired a UCF scientist who has developed filaments that harvest and store the sun’s energy—and can be woven into textiles.

The breakthrough would essentially turn jackets and other clothing into wearable, solar-powered batteries that never need to be plugged in. It could one day revolutionize wearable technology, helping everyone from soldiers who now carry heavy loads of batteries to a texting-addicted teen who could charge his smartphone by simply slipping it in a pocket.

A Nov. 14, 2016 University of Central Florida news release (also on EurekAlert) by Mark Schlueb, which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

“That movie was the motivation,” Associate Professor Jayan Thomas, a nanotechnology scientist at the University of Central Florida’s NanoScience Technology Center, said of the film released in 1989. “If you can develop self-charging clothes or textiles, you can realize those cinematic fantasies – that’s the cool thing.”

…

Thomas already has been lauded for earlier ground-breaking research. Last year, he received an R&D 100 Award – given to the top inventions of the year worldwide – for his development of a cable that can not only transmit energy like a normal cable but also store energy like a battery. He’s also working on semi-transparent solar cells that can be applied to windows, allowing some light to pass through while also harvesting solar power.

His new work builds on that research.

“The idea came to me: We make energy-storage devices and we make solar cells in the labs. Why not combine these two devices together?” Thomas said.

Thomas, who holds joint appointments in the College of Optics & Photonics and the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, set out to do just that.

Taking it further, he envisioned technology that could enable wearable tech. His research team developed filaments in the form of copper ribbons that are thin, flexible and lightweight. The ribbons have a solar cell on one side and energy-storing layers on the other.

Though more comfortable with advanced nanotechnology, Thomas and his team then bought a small, tabletop loom. After another UCF scientists taught them to use it, they wove the ribbons into a square of yarn.

The proof-of-concept shows that the filaments could be laced throughout jackets or other outwear to harvest and store energy to power phones, personal health sensors and other tech gadgets. It’s an advancement that overcomes the main shortcoming of solar cells: The energy they produce must flow into the power grid or be stored in a battery that limits their portability.

“A major application could be with our military,” Thomas said. “When you think about our soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, they’re walking in the sun. Some of them are carrying more than 30 pounds of batteries on their bodies. It is hard for the military to deliver batteries to these soldiers in this hostile environment. A garment like this can harvest and store energy at the same time if sunlight is available.”

There are a host of other potential uses, including electric cars that could generate and store energy whenever they’re in the sun.

“That’s the future. What we’ve done is demonstrate that it can be made,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be very useful for the general public and the military and many other applications.”

The proof-of-concept shows that the filaments could be laced throughout jackets or other outwear to harvest and store energy to power phones, personal health sensors and other tech gadgets. It's an advancement that overcomes the main shortcoming of solar cells: the energy they produce must flow into the power grid or be stored in a battery that limits their portability. Credit: UCF Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-11-future-solar-nanotech-powered.html#jCp

The proof-of-concept shows that the filaments could be laced throughout jackets or other outwear to harvest and store energy to power phones, personal health sensors and other tech gadgets. It’s an advancement that overcomes the main shortcoming of solar cells: the energy they produce must flow into the power grid or be stored in a battery that limits their portability. Credit: UCF

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Wearable energy-smart ribbons for synchronous energy harvest and storage by Chao Li, Md. Monirul Islam, Julian Moore, Joseph Sleppy, Caleb Morrison, Konstantin Konstantinov, Shi Xue Dou, Chait Renduchintala, & Jayan Thomas. Nature Communications 7, Article number: 13319 (2016)  doi:10.1038/ncomms13319 Published online: 11 November 2016

This paper is open access.

Dexter Johnson in a Nov. 15, 2016 posting on his blog Nanoclast on the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) provides context for this research and, in this excerpt, more insight from the researcher,

In a telephone interview with IEEE Spectrum, Thomas did concede that at this point, the supercapacitor was not capable of storing enough energy to replace the batteries entirely, but could be used to make a hybrid battery that would certainly reduce the load a soldier carries.

Thomas added: “By combining a few sets of ribbons (2-3 ribbons) in parallel and connecting these sets (3-4) in a series, it’s possible to provide enough power to operate a radio for 10 minutes. …

For anyone interested in knowing more about how this research fits into the field of textiles that harvest energy, I recommend reading Dexter’s piece.

3D television is resurrected by way of a nanocomposite

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A Feb. 10, 2014 University of Central Florida news release by Barbara Abney (also on EurekAlert) tells the tale of a researcher working on the development of 3D images on television,

Gone are the goofy glasses required of existing sets. Instead, assistant professor Jayan Thomas is working on creating the materials necessary to create a 3-D image that could be seen from 360 degrees with no extra equipment.

“The TV screen should be like a table top,” Thomas said. “People would sit around and watch the TV from all angles like sitting around a table. Therefore, the images should be like real-world objects. If you watch a football game on this 3-D TV, you would feel like it is happening right in front of you. A holographic 3-D TV is a feasible direction to accomplish this without the need of glasses.”

His work is so far along that the National Science Foundation has given him a $400,000 grant over five years to develop the materials needed to produce display screens.

Here’s an image of Thomas sitting mimicking the experience of his 3D television at a tabletop,

UCF Researcher Jaden Thomas uses nantechnology to bring 3-D television back to life.

UCF [University of Central Florida] Researcher Jaden Thomas uses nantechnology to bring 3-D television back to life.

Thomas’ work comes at a very interesting juncture for the industry (from the news release),

When 3-D TVs first came on the market in 2010, there was a lot of hype and the market expected the new sets would take off. Several broadcasters even pledged to create special channels for 3-D programming, such as ESPN and the BBC.

But in the past year, those broadcasters have canceled plans because sales have lagged and the general public hasn’t adopted the sets as hoped. Some say that’s because the television sets are expensive and require bulky equipment and glasses.

Here’s how Thomas’ approach differs, in very general terms (from the news release),

Thomas’ approach would use new plastic composites made with nanotechnology to make the 3-D image recording process multitudes faster than currently possible. This would eliminate the need for glasses.

Thomas and his colleagues have developed the specific plastic composite needed to create the display screens necessary for effectively showing the 3-D images. That work has been published in the journals Nature and Advanced Materials.

There’s more about Dr. Thomas along with listings of his publications on his NanoScience Technology Center faculty page.

ETA Feb. 14, 2014: You may want to read Dexter Johnson’s Feb. 14, 2014 posting on his Nanoclast blog (on the IEEE [Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers]) concerning 3D televisions and Thomas’ work (Note: A link has been removed),

 At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), it became clear that the much-ballyhooed age of 3-D TV was coming to a quiet and uncelebrated end. One of the suggested causes of its demise was the cost of the 3D glasses. If you wanted to invite a group over to watch the big sporting event, you had better have a lot of extra pairs on hand, which might cost you a small fortune.

Eliminating the glasses from the experience has been proposed from the first moment 3-D TVs were introduced to the marketplace.

Dexter goes on to provide technical context for Thomas’ work as he expands on his theme.

Unique ‘printing’ process boosts supercapacitor performance

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In addition to creating energy, we also need to store some of it for future use as a July 29, 2013 news release from the University of Central Florida notes,

Researchers at the University of Central Florida have developed a technique to increase the energy storage capabilities of supercapacitors, essential devices for powering high-speed trains, electric cars, and the emergency doors of the Airbus A380.

The finding, which offers a solution to a problem that has plagued the growing multi-billion dollar industry, utilizes a unique three-step process to “print” large – area nanostructured electrodes, structures necessary to improve electrical conductivity and boost performance of the supercapacitor.

Jayan Thomas, an assistant professor in UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center, led the project which is featured in the June edition of Advanced Materials, one of the leading peer-reviewed scientific journals covering materials science in the world. Thomas’ research appears on the journal’s highly-coveted frontispiece, the illustration page of the journal that precedes the title page.

The news release goes on to describe the supercapacitor issue the researchers were addressing,

Supercapacitors have been around since the 1960’s. Similar to batteries, they store energy. The difference is that supercapacitors can provide higher amounts of power for shorter periods of time, making them very useful for heavy machinery and other applications that require large amounts of energy to start.  However, due to their innate low energy density; supercapacitors are limited in the amount of energy that they can store.

“We had been looking at techniques to print nanostructures,” said Thomas. “Using a simple spin-on nanoprinting (SNAP) technique, we can print highly-ordered nanopillars without the need for complicated development processes. By eliminating these processes, it allows multiple imprints to be made on the same substrate in close proximity.“

This simplified fabrication method devised by Thomas and his team is very attractive for the next-generation of energy storage systems. “What we’ve found is by adding the printed ordered nanostructures to supercapacitor electrodes, we can increase their surface area many times,” added Thomas. “We discovered that supercapacitors made using the SNAP technique can store much more energy than ones made without.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the research paper abut this new technique for supercapacitors,

Energy Storage: Highly Ordered MnO2 Nanopillars for Enhanced Supercapacitor Performance (Adv. Mater. 24/2013) by Zenan Yu, Binh Duong, Danielle Abbitt, and Jayan Thomas. Article first published online: 20 JUN 2013 DOI: 10.1002/adma.201370160 Advanced Materials Volume 25, Issue 24, page 3301, June 25, 2013.

Lead researcher Thomas was recently featured in a video for his work on creating plasmonic nanocrystals from gold nanoparticles (from the news release),

Thomas, who is also affiliated with the College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL), and the College of Engineering, was recently featured on American Institute of Physics’ Inside Science TV for his collaborative research to develop a new material using nanotechnology that could potentially help keep pilots safe by diffusing harmful laser light.

Here’s the video,

You can find videos, news, and blogs featuring other research at Inside Science and you can find out more about Dr. Jayan Thomas here.