Researchers at the University of South Carolina say they're developing a new technology that could turn the material in a cotton T-shirt into a source of electrical power. Researchers Lihong Bao and Xiaodong Li soaked a regular T-Shirt in a solution of fluoride, dried it and baked it at high temperature (without oxygen, to prevent charring or burning). The result was a fabric that under infrared spectroscopy was shown to have been converted from cellulose to activated carbon while retaining flexibility. That new material could then be used as a capacitor to store an electrical charge. More impressive, the researchers coated the individual fibers in the activated carbon textile with "nanoflowers" of manganese oxide, turning the T-shirt into a stable, high performance superconductor.