Monday, October 7, 2013

Charging Mobile Phone With Lightning

For most of us, lightning can be a truly terrifying, powerful and awe-inspiring force of nature, but scientists from Nokia and University of Southampton, UK, have successfully used simulated lightning to charge a Nokia phone.

Scientist Neil Palmer at University of Southampton has created a 200,000 volts man-made lightning bolt using AC current driven by a transformer, sent across a 300mm gap and then stepped into a second controlling transformer to charge a Nokia Lumia 925 phone. The phone circuitry somehow stabilized the noisy signal, allowing the battery to be charged wirelessly.


“This discovery proves that the device can be charged with a current that passes through the air, and is a huge step towards understanding a natural power like lightning and harnessing its energy,” Neil said.

“This is a first for any mobile phone company to trial this kind of technology,” said Chris Weber, Nokia Executive Vice President for Sales & Marketing. “We obviously aren’t recommending people try this experiment at home, but we are always looking to disrupt and push the boundaries of technology and find innovative ways to improve the performance of our products.”

“As one of the first companies to introduce wireless charging into our products, we believe that this experiment has the potential to jump-start new ideas on how we charge our phones in the future.”

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