There does not seem to have any end to the ingenuity of humans, and being the power hungry race that we are, it is not surprising to hear that the world is in an energy crisis at the moment. Our insatiable appetite for power has led to an imbalance of power and wealth, and cheap as well as eco-friendly and sustainable energy needs to be looked into. For instance, modern day road warriors carry plenty of devices around in their pockets, such as the smartphone and tablet. At times, we might actually run out of juice on these devices, which is why having a portable charger or power bank makes sense. How about powering up your thirsty batteries in the ride itself? A new kind of nano generator that has been successfully developed by researchers at University of Wisconsin, Sun Yat-sen University in China and the University of Minnesota Duluth might eventually make its way into the handset itself, or embedded within an outer case so that power can be harvested from the vibrations created by a moving car.
Does it work when you are on an airplane as well? I suppose that theoretically speaking, an old jalopy with terrible suspension would be able to help this unique idea generate more juice than a super smooth suspension in the latest BMW 7 Series. Described in a patent as a “mesoporous piezoelectric nanogenerator”, we could be looking at self-powered phones in the future.
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