Degree Type

Honors Capstone Project

Date of Submission

Spring 5-1-2010

Capstone Advisor

Dr. Andrew Darling

Honors Reader

Olivia Robinson

Capstone Major

Biomedical and Chemical Engineering

Capstone College

Engineering and Computer Science

Audio/Visual Component

no

Capstone Prize Winner

no

Won Capstone Funding

no

Honors Categories

Sciences and Engineering

Subject Categories

Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering | Other Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

Abstract

There is a need for increased pedestrian visibility. Improved athletic clothing with built in visibility features would enhance a roadside athlete’s safety. This experiment aims to create such an athletic shirt, while incorporating wearable biotechnology. A sweat battery that produced a voltage of 0.49 V and a current of 5.16 mA was created to power the visibility aspects of the shirt. The battery uses an aluminum anode, a carbon cathode, a sponge block as the container and semi-permeable membrane, and the body’s eccrine sweat as the electrolyte solution. The battery cells were arranged into blocks to produce an optimal current and voltage to power light emitting diodes (LED’s). The athletic shirt design was evolved from a previous sweat belt design, which used three blocks of sweat batteries to light 18 LED’s. The athletic shirt was designed with two components, a top layer with the visibility elements and the bottom with the power sweat battery component. The shirt was run through three trials, where it failed to produce enough voltage or current to power any of the visibility elements. The main experimental factors that caused the discrepancy were due to sweat rate and composition. Lower sweat rate and electrolyte concentration (specifically sodium and chloride ions) between the shirt trials and the belt trials resulted in halving the power. This design is an interdisciplinary innovation, but requires more consistency and development before it can be actively used.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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