Charge your smart-phone with your t-shirt?

Engineers in the University of North Carolina have been conducting, excuse the pun, research on a modified piece of clothing, i.e. a t-shirt, changing it into highly conductive and flexible activated carbon textiles (ACTs) for energy-storage applications.

They bought a random cotton t-shirt, added some chemicals and stuck it in the oven (yes, seriously!). Using their chemical wizadry, they created a stable, high-performing supercapacitor, storing an electric charge and capable of charging and discharging a lot of times, with enough power to easily charge a smart phone device numerous times.

Here is a link to the official abstract of their research. I love hearing about research like this, it's the technology of the future, in the making...