Who Needs Electrical Outlets? Walking Could Recharge Your Mobile Devices

Posted 05/21/2010 at 6:01am | by Paul Lilly

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Perhaps in the not too distant future, you'll be able to coax a few more minutes of talk time from your smartphone by joggin around the block. That's because researchers at the University of Georgia Institute of Technology have come up with a way of generating enough energy to power portable devices by walking or running.

What they've done is develop tiny nanowries constructed of zinc oxide. These wires can generate an electric field through force or motion, converting mechanical energy into electrical energy.

"Any physical action that bends the substrate creates energy," said Zhong Lin Wang, professor and director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at Georgia Institute of Technology. Wang went on to explain that the electricity output depends on the number of nanowires and how strong the materials are.

There haven't been any field tests yet, but within two to three years, the researchers think they'll have substrates ready small and stable enough to integrate into low-power devices like Bluetooth transmitters. And what about those smartphones and other similar sized portable devices? We're looking at five years down the road, Wang said.