Nanotechnology pushes battery life to eternity
June 21, 2011
Let your fingers do the charging (credit: James Giggacher)
A simple tap from your finger may be enough to charge your portable device, thanks to a discovery by Australian National University researchers, using piezoelectric thin films.
The technology could allow for an iPad that recharges every time you press the screen, or a pacemaker powered by your own blood pressure.
Ref.: Madhu Bhaskaran, et al., Energy Materials: Nanoscale Characterization of Energy Generation from Piezoelectric Thin Films, Advanced Functional Materials, first published online: June 16, 2011, [DOI: 10.1002/adfm.20119004112/2011]
Comments (3)
by Editor
Ciantic: agreed. The materials provided by ANU lacked technical details. I have requested a copy of the Advanced Functional Materials paper and I’ll post an update when I get it.
by Ciantic
Article is lacking a lot of details.
First of all, the single tap, (or anything short of throwing the thing in the wall multiple times) will not power iPad. Simply because iPad, iPhone, whatever uses shit load of energy at the moment. This is actually simple calculation for anyone familiar with Newtonian physics, the tapping does not produce a squat of energy even in theory.
Now let’s assume the article talks about “hypothetical iPad” & “hypothetical pacemaker” which uses considerable amounts of less energy – so little in fact – that they could be powered by tapping power. What does this piezoelectric invention mean in this hypothetical device world? Well very little, because by the time one can power iPad by simple taps you could basically power the iPad almost indefinitely with smallest of batteries.
So in conclusion, nice detail, but not going to be major power source for anything else than hypothetical devices.
by the0nly0ne
Very interesting. This could greatly increase mobile productivity. How many times have you held back to prevent your battery from going dead.