The sun to power future mobile phones
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At last, it’s coming. What? Eco-friendly mobile phones. Hopefully. The Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (the largest labs for applied sciences in Germany) has rolled out a prototype sun powered mobile phone.
Sure, this isn’t the ever first solution up to now. Solar panels can recharge your empty battery. And their efficiency increases while decreasing the charging time. Cool, but that doesn’t extend your battery lifespan; that doesn’t make your cellphone more self-sufficient.
So let’s go step further. Instead of charging the battery, what if the battery recharges itself with the sun?… That’s the idea of the Fraunhofer Institute. Researchers have developed a flexible, bendable battery.
The mobile phone, which will be showcased in the upcoming Hanover trade fair, is claimed “to achieve a module efficiency rate of 20 percent using device-integrated, high-efficiency solar cells.” This means “the phone can always stay powered on. A solar-powered PDA would also be capable of operating self-sufficiently.”
(via the red ferret)
Jun 13, 2006 | By Nuno
5 comments
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I am so impressed by the idea of self-charging battery. Lesotho is one of the South African developing countries, with a slow pace of infrastructural development. Utility services like electricity are still scares and quite a significant area has not yet been supplied. Though the use of cell-phone is common with the wide range of satilite coverage, the majority of the population in the rural areas ate deprived the used of cell-phone due to lack electricity. I therefore, find the idea to be challenging. If possible, I would like to act as an agent to distribute the technology. Please vanish me with the necessary information to access the technology.
In your situation, I guess the best thing to do is simply call the Fraunhofer Institute. But you’ve got to know that the technology is just starting out.
this is a great achievement in technology. i feel pleased because it was just today that i thought of something like this and i was intending to do this as my final year project. one thing though that i want to include is the fact that why not they make the screen of such mobile phones as solar panels adding to the number of panels on a phone thereby increasing the efficiency and power generation. And instead of recharging the battery of the phone, why can’t it operate the phone directly
thanks
Oke-Salako: I guess that in this case (solar energy powering the handset), energy would fluctuate too much to provide a decent comfort of use. It’s like solar-powered watch in the 90s, you hide the solar panel, you cannot do anything. And for instance, your phone call will just pop out.
I FIND THIS IDEA VERY USEFUL AS I ALSO tHOUGHT Of
this idea BEFORE BUT PLEASE FIND IS IT ECONOMIC