Sound Charge T-shirt

Orange (a telecommunications company brand France) in collaboration with GotWind (an organization working in the field of technology) has created a shirt that can transform sound waves into electricity. They call it the Sound Charge T-shirt.

The purpose is to create a solution to recharge the phone or gadget with a noisy environment like a festival or mine drilling area. So need for communication can continue to be met and does not need to be disconnected.

The working principle Sound Charge T-shirt is by using piezoelectric elements to generate electricity. Piezoelectric technology itself has been known since the 19th century. Piezo derived from the Greek, piezo / piezin which mean pressure. Piezoelectric commonly used to refer to a device that uses pressure to produce electricity.

Piezoelectric the easiest example is to look on the lighter. Piezoelectric crystals are used in lighters to create a high voltage power after being hit by a hammer spring. This electricity then burn the gas and creates fire.

 

Sound Charge T-shirt using a piezoelectric film layer as a fundamental component in creating electricity. As shown in the figure, the working principle can be described as follows.

1. Piezoelectric panels in the form of an A4-sized film layer is attached to the shirt (white part). The piezoelectric film received the “pressure” of the sound waves coming.
2. Then, piezoelectric quartz crystal material in the film layer converts sound pressure waves into electricity
3. The electricity produced will be stored in a small container for batteries. Later, the gadget you want in-charge stay ‘plugged’ into the battery.

To sound at the level of 80dB, the T-shirt is capable of producing electricity at 6 Watts. According to them, the noise equivalent of crowd noise in the streets of big cities. For a live performances of music, of course, as hard as it sounds (80 dB) will be easily obtained. T-shirts have also been tested on the biggest annual music festival in the UK that is Glastonbury.

Of this discovery is still not perfect. Still needs some improvement and development to be done to be mass-produced. Moreover, this is only one solution of many ways to earn alternative energy, such as solar panels. In my opinion, every innovation deserves to be appreciated.

May we as college can develop a better technology for the name of Indonesia in the eyes of the world.

Apry Nur Sudi Yanto (125150300111030)