Remember those self-winding watches that would use the movement of your wrist to wind the mechanism inside so that the timepiece would be powered up perpetually? Researchers at MIT have developed a battery that can "harvest energy" from a person's natural movements including walking.
The technology involved is similar to the lithium ion batteries used by many smartphones, but would be flexible enough to use in wearable devices. While a li-ion battery used in a handset takes in power and stores it until needed, MIT's new cell takes in mechanical energy and converts it to electricity.
One part of the battery would be attached to an arm or a leg. The everyday movements would force the bending of two thin sheets of lithium alloys, separated by a layer of porous polymer soaked with liquid electrolyte. The bending squeezes lithium ions through the soaked polymer creating an electrical current between the two lithium alloy sheets. That current could be used to power a smartphone, tablet or smartwatch.
While other methods that harvest mechanical energy had small current output and short pulse duration, the MIT technology had large current output and long pulse duration. All of this means that future smartphone and wearable devices powered by such a battery could be fully charged after a short, brisk walk around the block.
"This work is very interesting and significant in the sense that it provides a novel approach to converting mechanical energy through an electrochemical route, using a simple design and device structure. More significantly, the output current from the demonstrated device is very large, with a long pulse duration. This is very important for practical applications, since most other mechanical energy harvesting methods suffer from the issues of small current output with short pulse duration."-Wu Wenzhuo, assistant professor of industrial engineering, Purdue University
Don't expect this technology to be powering mobile devices anytime soon. While testing shows that the system is stable, there is still much more work to be done before this technology becomes ready for prime time.
The process was described in a paper written by MIT professor Ju Li, graduate students Sangtae Kim and Soon Ju Choi, and four others.
This illustration shows the two lithium electrodes sandwiching a layer of electrolytes. When the sandwich is bent, the lithum ions are pushed into the middle layer of electrolytes creating an electrical current
Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.
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