VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY, VIRGINIA, USA. A new technology in terms of charging your mobile phones battery is currently being developed by a team of researchers. The research is based on producing piezoelectric force with your fingertips when you click on your mobile phone’s keypad, sound vibrations and even by just giving your phone a good shake. This technology is being designed as an emergency onboard charger which should provide the user a few extra minutes of battery life when it is needed the most.

Since zinc oxide is considered as a very common piezoelectric material, the researchers have experimented on producing energy with it by converting sound, pressure and vibration waves into energy to give your mobile phone battery some extra life. The piezoelectric material vibrated and produced electrical current at about 50 millivolts after being exposed to sound waves of 100 decibels. The actual piezoelectric material is going to be mounted underneath the keypad of the mobile phone. That way, it will be able to convert mechanical vibrations into energy. This stored energy produced can be stored and used later on when it is much needed.

A team of researchers led by Shashank Priya at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) are working on the project. He said that this project does not aim to provide full battery charging to your mobile phones. It only aims to provide emergency battery power that will last for a few minutes in cases when chargers or electrical outlets are not available. A few minutes of battery life will definitely be enough to make a few emergency calls which could be beneficial in very important situations.