Texting for Energy

In America, cell phones are generally a necessity for most people. Billions of text messages are sent every month and scientists are trying to find ways to generate energy from this. A Push-to-Charge phone would provide energy by simply mashing the buttons on your cell phone.

How can pushing buttons on your cell phone provide enough energy to power your phone? The concept uses piezoelectricity to generate electricity. Piezoelectricity occurs when certain crystals are bent. Some crystals that have piezoelectric properties are quarts and cane sugar.

The Push-to-Charge phone would have the plastic buttons that its user would be pressing and under that would be a hard metal layer. At the bottom would be the piezoelectric crystals and the metal layer would act as a hammer to bend the crystals when a button is pushed, thus creating a voltage for the battery. The estimated voltage created every time a button is pushed is around 0.5 volts which is considerable when taking into account that one text message takes a good amount of button pressing.

This concept could also be implemented in video games, computers, and other forms of button mashing...


http://science.howstuffworks.com/five-forms-alternative-energy4.htm

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-piezoelectricity.htm