Scientists create super-thin 'sheet' that could charge our phones

Breakthrough means large sheets of energy-harvesting material can be produced

Ian Sample Science editor
@iansample
Mon 28 Jan 2019 11.00 EST

We have all been there. In a rush to leave the house we grab our phones and head out the door, realising all too late that the battery is dead because we forgot to plug it into the tablecloth.

Or perhaps we have not. But this could be the future that scientists hope to usher in with electronic sheets that charge our mobile phones, laptops and other gadgets by harvesting energy from the world around us.

In a step in that direction, scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created super-thin, bendy materials that absorb wireless internet and other electromagnetic waves in the air and turn them into electricity.

The lead researcher, Tomás Palacios, said the breakthrough paved the way for energy-harvesting covers ranging from tablecloths to giant wrappers for buildings that extract energy from the environment to power sensors and other electronics. Details have been published in the journal Nature.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jan/28/scientists-create-super-thin-sheet-could-charge-our-phones