Japanese Battery Makes Power From Vibrations

When it comes to gadgets many of us tend to focus on the performance as far as how fast the thing operates. Perhaps more important that advances in outright performance such as how fast a phone operates are improvements in battery technology that will allow our gadgets to run longer. A cool new battery technology from Japan has surfaced that is able to make power from harnessing the energy in vibrations.

The little battery is very small at about the size of the tip of a sharp pencil. Despite its small size, it is able to generate impressive levels of power with an energy density of around 22mW/cm3. That is about 20 times higher than the energy density of other vibration-powered generators.

One of the keys to making so much more power than other similar devices is the high-tech alloy used in the device. The alloy is made from a mixture of iron and gallium called Galfenol that has magnetostrictive properties. That means the material reacts when a magnetic field is applied and change shape in response to the field. This is still in the research stages so it is much too early to know when or if the battery will ever make it to market in a consumer device.

Via Inhabitat