The combination of rising populations, climate change, and depleted natural resources has emphasized the need for sustainable technology. This technology isn’t limited to big devices like photovoltaic panels and wind turbines; recently, a team of researchers has developed a textile capable of harnessing energy from both sunlight and wind.

The team developed a fabrication strategy that merged two different lightweight, low-cost polymer fibers to create energy-producing textiles. The first component of the textile is a microcable solar cell, able to gather power from ambient sunlight. The second is a nanogenerator capable of converting mechanical energy into electricity.

The photovoltaic portion of the textile was composed of a copper-coated polymer fiber that was then further coated with concentric layers of manganese, zinc-oxide/dye, and copper iodide—the zinc oxide is a photovoltaic material, while the copper helps harvest the charges. These solar-cell microcables were then woven together with a copper wire.