用体热给手机充电

    Recharging the battery on your mobile phone could soon be as simple as popping it in your pocket so it can soak up the heat given off by your body.

    Scientists have developed a gel-based powercell capable of converting body heat into electrical energy.

    It could mean that wearable technology like smartwatches and fitness monitors could charge up while on your wrist by incorporating the gel into the straps.

    Users would no longer need to worry about ensuring their devices are charged up overnight as they would have a constant source of energy while being worn.

    The researchers have already created a wearable patch that sticks onto the skin, but they say the technology could also be incorporated into clothing or even mobile phones in the future.

    Zhou Jun, deputy director of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics* at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, who led the research, said: “This technology could have an application in the future as a generator that uses body heat for powering functional electronics.”

    The technology works by placing two different pairs of tiny iron-based metal plates on either side of a plastic-like gel that conducts electrical current.

    These create small electrical cells that can be linked together in a checkerboard pattern, which can be worn as a patch on the skin.

    As the human body can often be tens of degrees warmer than the surrounding environment, this can generate a voltage.(SD-Agencies)