Let Water Power Your Mobile Phone

from the fill-'er-up dept

Mon, Oct 20th 2003 8:46am — Mike Masnick

Roland Piquepaille writes "No, we are not April 1st. And no, this is not science fiction. The very serious Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering revealed last week that scientists have discovered a new source of electricity: "generating electric power by harnessing the natural electrokinetic properties of a liquid such as ordinary tap water when it is pumped through tiny microchannels." "This technology could provide a new power source for devices such as mobile phones or calculators which could be charged up by pumping water to high pressure," said Professor Kostiuk, from the University of Alberta, where the technique was developed. But don't expect to power your cell phone with pressurized water anytime soon. My blog contains some excerpts from the article."

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dorpus, 20 Oct 2003 @ 11:27am

Just about anything
can act like a weak battery. Remember all those high school science fair projects with potato-powered watches? That spawned the late 80s marketing craze of spud this and spud that.
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