A New Way to Charge Your Phone?

Apart from creating iPhone 4 sleeves that allow users to connect to Korean Telecom’s WiMAX connection, recently a certain Dr Sang-Woo Kim of the Institute of Nanotechnology at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea has been working on a new and rather novel way of charging our phones – by yelling into it.

Okay so perhaps not really by yelling but rather by using the power of our speech to charge our phones. Basically this would allow us to charge our phones while we speak or through any sound source.

“The sound that always exists in our everyday life and environments has been overlooked as a source. This motivated us to realize power generation by turning sound energy from speech, music or noise into electrical power. Sound power can be used for various novel applications including cellular phones that can be charged during conversations and sound-insulating walls near highways that generate electricity from the sound of passing vehicles.”

How this works is by using two strands of zinc oxide which is squeezed between two electrodes. A sound absorbing pad on top picks up the noise it will cause the zinc oxide to move and that energy is captured and thus charges your phone. However as of now it seems that it would require 100 decibels in order to generate 50 millivolts which apparently is no where near enough to charge your phone but who knows what will happen in the future?