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Start running to charge up your phone
BEACON TRANSCRIPT – In the future you could get fit and charge your phone at the same time, as MIT found how to turn human motion into electricity in a way which stops energy from being wasted. It’s an exceptionally interesting concept that has been researched for a while.
Perhaps the notion of never-ending battery life will be possible in the future.
Mobiles have evolved immensely within the last decade. The improvements are too many to list, but it’s one aspect that has certainly gone down: battery life. It’s the worry of all smartphone owners, and the desperate search for an electrical socket is known to most of us.
However, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have reportedly found a way to generate electricity out of the motion of a human body. According to their findings, it will be a sort of clean energy that can power up the familiar lithium-ion batteries. It will be absorbed and then transformed to electricity.
The scientists took two lithium alloy layers and slipped a porous polymer sheet saturated with liquid electrolytes in between them. The sheet worked as a method of transportation between the two alloy layers. Through moving and, implicitly bending, the created pressure would compress lithium ions and generate voltage. That in turn could be used to charge up the battery life of a smartphone, for example.
According to co-author of the study, professor Ju Li from MIT, there is absolutely no limitation to the process. That means that, pending a couple of breakthroughs, they could amp up the technology to 100%. That’s given the fact that it’s currently working to a 15% capacity. However, the research is still in its infancy, and it may yet provide full potential in a matter of years.
Gone will be the cables and wires, and the electric bills will probably be gentler.
In the future, their technology could be mainly used for wearable devices. The added perk is that since it works with motion of the human body, it will be perfect when exercising. Your phone is low? Run a few laps around the block to get it charged. Push ups, sit ups, squats, lunges or anything that implies bending could do the trick.
In the eyes of the team from MIT, it promotes fitness and generates clean energy. It’s a win-win for all involved, especially since the materials are not expensive at all. The components could be easily be introduced in wearable devices and they are also easy to produce. It could mean a potential revolution of smart gadgets and a completely new approach to generating electricity.
The full extent of the research is still years away, but it’s certainly promising.
Image source: puregraceful.com
