Future Teckno........!!!

Someday, Charge Your Smartphone Simply By Walking

Tom Krupenkin and Ashley Taylor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison believe that we may be able to power our mobile devices such as cell phones simply by walking.

In an article published in Nature Communications, the two researchers describe a new approach of using kinetic energy to charge batteries.

"Humans, generally speaking, are very powerful energy-producing machines," said Krupenkin, a UW-Madison professor of mechanical engineering. "While sprinting, a person can produce as much as a kilowatt of power."

If it was possible to even use a fraction of that energy, there could be enough power to run virtually any gadget in our possession.

"What has been lacking is a mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion technology that would work well for this type of application," Krupenkin said.

In their paper, the researchers describe an approach of "reverse electrowetting" which enables mechanical energy to be converted to electrical energy by using a micro-fluidic device consisting of thousands of "liquid micro-droplets interacting with a novel nano-structured substrate."

Krupenkin believes that this technology, which could be integrated in footwear, for example, could capture the energy created by a walking human and gain about 20 watts of power. Normally, that energy would be converted to heat. "Unlike a traditional battery, the energy harvester never needs to be recharged, as the new energy is constantly generated during the normal walking process," a press release stated.

The scientists envision two different uses for their invention. It could either be used to directly power mobile devices or it could be integrated with a Wi-Fi hotspot This allows users to seamlessly utilize the energy generated by the harvester without having to physically connect their mobile devices to the footwear. Such a configuration "dramatically reduces the power consumption of wireless mobile devices and allows them to operate for much longer time without battery recharge," the researchers said.

"You cut the power requirements of your cellphone dramatically by doing this," Krupenkin noted. "Your cell phone battery will last 10 times longer."

There was no information when this technology could become commercially available.