Walk and Charge Smartphone - All at Once

Although there are 7 wonders in this world, but apart from that, we as human beings almost daily observe some over-the-top miracles happening around the globe. Adding another one to the pre-existing list is the development of an innovative energy harvesting and storage technology that if implemented can allow a user to charge his smartphone just by walking reducing the slavery over batteries.

The project is under development and is being implemented by the Mechanical engineers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The two scientists from the University Tom Krupenkin (Professor of Mechanical Engineering) and J Ashley Taylor (Senior Scientist) are working on this technology that will use the energy generated from the human motion to power up the mobile device. This way the energy produced by walking can also be used for later use without much of a hassle. It can be useful for the military personnel too as they are forced to carry heavy batteries to power their radios, GPS units and night-vision goggles in the field.

Explaining about the technology, Tom Krupenkin said, "Human walking carries a lot of energy. Theoretical estimates show that it can produce up to 10 watts per shoe and that energy is just wasted as heat. A total of 20 watts from walking is not a small thing, especially compared to the power requirements of the majority of modern mobile devices." Take a look at the video below to understand the technology in a better way

Krupenkin further explained that tapping into just a small amount of the said energy is enough to power a wide range of mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptop computers and flashlights as a typical smartphone requires less than two watts of energy. He further added that "We have been developing new methods of directly converting mechanical motion into electrical energy that is appropriate for this type of application."

When asked about the working process, Tom said - The researchers are using reverse electrowetting - a phenomenon under which mechanical energy is directly converted into electrical energy when a conductive liquid interacts with a nanofilm-coated surface and that the engineers are looking for industry to commercialise the technology through their startup company, InStep NanoPower.