Forget Solar Energy, This is the Future

New invention 'harvests' electricity from background radiation and could be used to beam power to remote locations or recharge phones wirelessly

Device captures microwaves and converts them into electricity

Future versions could harvest satellite, sound or Wi-Fi signals

Technology could be used to recharge phones without cables or beam electricity to mountaintops

Engineers at Duke University have designed a breakthrough gadget that 'harvests' background microwave radiation and converts it into electricity, with the same efficiency as solar panels.
The development, unveiled on Thursday, raises exciting possibilities such as recharging a phone wirelessly and providing power to remote locations that can't access conventional electricity.
And the researchers say that their inexpensive invention is remarkably versatile. It could be used to capture 'lost' energy from a range of sources such as satellite transmissions, sound signals or Wi-Fi.

The future: The device that is capable of harvesting microwave signals from the air consists of five fiberglass and copper conductors wired together on a circuit board

The Duke engineers used metamaterials, which their press release describes as 'engineered structures that can capture various forms of wave energy and tune them for useful applications.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2493931/New-device-harvests-electricity-background-radiation-like-Wi-Fi.html#ixzz2kAHoHIoi
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