Power your mobile from Air energy

Power your mobile from Air energy


A revolutionary new device would only need air to keep your mobile phones, wireless sensors and communication chips going.

These 'energy scavenging' devices could even be stored in places like shoes and can be operated by themselves or with other generating technologies. 

Said Manos Tentzeris, professor at the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering: "There is a large amount of electromagnetic energy all around us but nobody has been able to tap into it," the Daily Mail reports. 

If a battery or a solar-collector or battery package failed completely, scavenged energy could allow the system to transmit a wireless distress signal while also maintaining critical functionalities, according to a Georgia Tech statement. 

Tentzeris and his team have used inkjet printers to combine sensors, antennas and energy scavenging capabilities on paper or flexible polymers. 

So far, the energy captured is minute - measured in microwatts and milliwatts, not megawatts - but is able to gather enough juice to power small sensors and RFID tags. 

For example, the researchers last week said they had managed to gather enough energy from a TV station half a km away to power a small temperature sensor.