Your Cell Phone... As You Speak... So Shall it be Charged

Human speech is often referred to as "Hot Air", but can it really charge your cell phone?

This article reminds me of the crows in the Disney cartoon “Dumbo”; Voicing their skepticism about a flying elephant in song.

“I seen a peanut stand
And heard a rubber band
I seen a needle that winked its eye

But I've been, done, seen about everything
When I see a elephant fly”

It sounds too good to be true and I have learned that things that do usually are.

A phone charged by conversations on it would really be something… if it works. Coming out of Korea, I think it is completely acceptable to question the validity of the announcement.

It would be helpful if some of you techie types checked it out for me.



Cell Phones Powered by Conversation?

New Technology Converts Sound to Energy

By ERIC BLAND
Sept 16, 2010

Discovery News



Chatty teenagers could be the world's next renewable energy source.

Scientists from Korea have turned the main ingredient of calamine lotion into a tiny material that converts sound waves into electricity. The research could lead to panels that can charge a cell phone from a conversation or provide a boost of energy to the nation's electrical grid generated by the noise during rush hour traffic.

"Just as speakers transform electric signals into sound, the opposite process -- of turning sound into a source of electrical power -- is possible," said Young Jun Park and Sang-Woo Kim, the two corresponding authors of a new article in the journal Advanced Materials.

Sound power can be used for various novel applications including mobile phones that can be charged during conversations and sound-insulating walls near highways that generate electricity from the sound of passing vehicles," the co-authors added.

Harvesting energy from phone calls and passing cars is based on materials known as piezoelectrics. When bent, a piezoelectric material turns that mechanical energy into electricity.

Lots of materials are piezoelectric: cane sugar, quartz and even dried bone creates an electrical charge when stressed. For decades, scientists have pumped electricity into piezoelectric materials for use in environmental sensors, speakers and other devices.


The Korean scientists, however, want to harness a different kind of power source: sound waves.