IIT Kharagpur has developed a method of generating electricity from clothes.Using clothes being dried in tandem by washermen in a remote village, researchers were able to reliably charge up to around 10 volts in almost 24 hours. This stored energy is enough to glow a white LED for more than an hour. The innovation demonstrates that ordinary cellulose-based wet textile, commonly dried in natural atmosphere, might be capable enough to serve the underprivileged community at large in terms of addressing the essential power requirements in remote areas.

Researchers utilised tiny channels in the cellulose-based fabric network, traditionally woven, to generate electrical power through guided movement of saline water amid continuous evaporation. The process is very much analogous to water transport across the parts of a living plant. The regular cellulose-based wearable textile, in this case, acts as a medium for the motion of salt ions through the interlace fibrous nano-scale network by capillary action, inducing an electric potential in the process.

Textiles capable of harnessing energy from both sunlight and wind are not new. A fabrication strategy has merged two different lightweight, low-cost polymer fibers to create energy-producing textiles. The first component of the textile is a micro cable solar cell, able to gather power from ambient sunlight. The second is a nano generator capable of converting mechanical energy into electricity.