What annoys us the most when it comes to our cell phones? The battery of course or rather its autonomy which is never important enough for the addicts that we are. What if in the future, we could use our fingers to recharge the battery of our smartphone?
While waiting for the improvement of the super-battery developed by mistake at the beginning of 2016 by researchers, another solution could see the light of day soon. Many researchers have been asking themselves the question of autonomy for a long time and some are now imagining a battery that would be recharged perpetually by the simple pressure of a finger!
In reality, it involves swiping the screen of your smartphone to recharge it and this has clearly gone beyond the stage of a simple idea since a prototype has already been created by researchers at Michigan State University ( MSU). The latter is only a foldable LCD screen/keyboard hybrid made up of around twenty LEDs, but it is actually recharged by simple swipes of the finger on the screen.
How is such a feat possible? The researchers were astute in their approach. Indeed, it is a question here of recovering the energy generated by the scanning of our fingers thanks to biocompatible ferroelectric nanogenerators also called FENG (for « biocompatible ferroelectret nanogenerator »). This invention was published in the journal Nano Energy on December 10, 2016.
This technology, still little known to the general public, could revolutionize the autonomy of multiple electrical devices requiring recharging. Nelson Sepulveda, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, explained in a statement from the university that: “We will soon have wearable devices powered by human movement. What I foresee, in the near future, is the ability to no longer have to charge your phone for a full week, for example, because the necessary energy will be produced by our movements. »
Here is a demonstration video published by Michigan State University:
Sources: Daily Mail – UberGizmo