Scientists from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and Nokia have created an energy harvesting prototype that can be used to charge your smartphone using everyday noise, like music, traffic or even your voice.
The team of researchers used Zinc oxide to create a voltage by converting energy from motion into electrical energy, in the form of nanorods. Scientists were able to harvest energy and generate a high voltage using the Nanorods. They can respond to vibration and movement created by everyday sound, like music or voices. Electrical contacts on both sides of the rods can then be used to harvest the voltage to charge a phone.
The scientists started by spraying a coating of liquid zinc oxide onto a plastic sheet, that they placed in a "mixture of chemicals" and heated to 90ºC (194ºF), which caused the zinc oxide to grow into an array of nanorods. The nanorod sheet was then placed between two electrical contact sheets. The researchers developed a cost-cutting technique that allowed them to use ordinary aluminum foil instead of Gold.
The prototype energy-harvesting device is about the size of a Nokia Lumia 925, and can generat up to five volts using "everyday background noise" such as traffic, music and voices, which is sufficient to charge a mobile phone.
Dr Joe Briscoe from QMUL’s School of Engineering and Materials Science said: “Being able to keep mobile devices working for longer, or do away with batteries completely by tapping into the stray energy that is all around us is an exciting concept. This collaboration was an excellent opportunity to develop alternative device designs using cheap and scalable methods. We hope that we have brought this technology closer to viability."
Source: Phys.org
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