Scrambling for a wall-socket and carrying your charger everywhere could be a thing of the past, thanks to new technology. Nokia has teamed up with researchers from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) to develop new technology that could charge your smartphone with sound.
Dr Joe Briscoe and Dr Steve Dunn of QMUL, as well as researchers from Nokia, have come up with a new method of charging smartphones that requires none of the traditional gear.
The key component is Zinc Oxide, a piezoelectric material that can turn mechanical energy, or energy created by motion, into electrical energy. When it’s squashed or stretched, it generates a voltage.
The researchers started off by breaking the Zinc Oxide, and other materials, down to a nano level, which makes it easier to gather energy from movement and vibration.
The Zinc Oxide is then made into nanorods and nanowires, which can be coated on to most surfaces. As the researchers explained: “when this surface is squashed or bent, the nanorods then generate a high voltage. This means they respond to vibration and movement created by everyday sound e.g. our voices. If you then put electrical contacts on both sides of the rods you can use the voltage they generate to charge a phone.”
To make these nanogenerators at scale, the team developed a process that allowed them to spray the Zinc Oxide on to a sheet of plastic, which they then heated it to 90 °C causing the nanorods to expand all over the surface of the plastic.
Typically, gold is used as an electrical contact, but Dr Briscoe and Dr Dunn created a new method that meant they could use aluminium foil in its place.
The final outcome of the experiment meant that the team managed to generate 5 volts and charge a Nokia Lumia 925.
Leaps and bounds
Battery life, the bane of any smartphone user, has irritated millions since they first hit the market. Early adopters in 2009, myself included, could barely get 4 hours out of a T-mobile G1. Despite repeated polls that show that better battery life is the most important feature to smartphone users, little has changed.
Things are, however, slowly beginning to improve. Increased chipset efficiency and bigger batteries in flagship devices like the Sony Xperia Z2 and the Samsung Galaxy S5 means you can get a solid 24 hours of battery life if used correctly, and even a week if extreme power saver modes are employed.
On the research side of things, scientists at Stanford University published a paper last month that showcased their pure lithium anode, which has the potential to increase the capacity of existing battery technology by 400%.
There’s also a range of new cases that take some of the core functionality out of the phone and place it into a ‘smartcase’. The FLIR One thermal imaging case and Vysk communications’ QS1 encryption case, both for iPhone, are two examples. both have their own power-source and chipsets to do processing outside of the phone.
Earlier this year, tech startup StoreDot, launched a video showing off new ultra-fast battery charging technology that charged a Samsung Galaxy S3 in 30 seconds. The technology has some way to go before it’s commercially ready, but team are confident that they can begin production in 2015.
original post found here=http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2014/08/15/new-technology-charges-smartphones-with-sound/
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