The idea of wireless power transfer is not a new one. Nikola Tesla demonstrated it as a working concept as early as 1893. A few years back researchers at MIT outlined a short-range method in a paper titled “non-radiative mid-range energy transfer”, more recently multiple smartphone manufacturers have already introduced wireless charging pads in to the market (including Nokia) and countless other researches are working wireless energy transfer in the hopes of one day ditching the cord.
According to MIT Technology Review, Nokia is working on producing a phone that loses little-to-no power while in standby mode. This is not thanks to some clever software that disables functions while the phone is not being used. Rather, Nokia hopes to use the radio waves that surround and pervade our entire technologically-based society to power a standby-mode phone at essentially zero energy cost.
To be clear, such a device would still need charging; it would simply lose negligible power while not in use, essentially upping its “standby mode” battery hours indefinitely.
Not only is this a pretty cool and even demonstrably feasible idea, but it would be positive for the environment. Harnessing power from radio waves that would otherwise be wasted would mean less time charging at the power point. It might not sound like much when you’re talking about one device, but consider that in 2012 the number of smartphones passed one billion globally. That number, according to Bloomberg, is set to double by 2015. Two billion smartphones charging at a rate of around two billion per 24 hours, assuming that the global average is what we would expect, is a lot of power. Even pushing that out to two billion per 48 hours with this ambient radio charging would do a lot of good, let alone 72 hours or more.
The concept gets even more interesting when you factor in the below video about the SUPER supercapacitor. We’ve talked before regarding the awesomeness of graphene and what it could do for technology and this is well within its abilities. If you haven’t heard of graphene then let’s just say that one of its many, many virtues is that it’s the most electrically and thermally conductive substance ever discovered. It's also incredibly strong, resistant to corrosion, is biodegradable, transparent, and the thinnest substance ever produced.
Utilizing the properties of thermal and electrical conductiveness, researchers at UCLA have designed what they’re calling the SUPER supercapacitor. Basically we’re talking about a long-lasting battery, for smartphones or otherwise, that could be fully charged in around 90 seconds. Not only that, but being made of graphene said battery could be incredibly tiny, light, bendable and resistant to damage.
Nokia also obtained a grant to work with graphene in February of this year. We’re unsure whether or not Nokia’s plans for this conceptual device are graphene-based, but we would be unsurprised if they were. With such an efficient material for power absorbtion and storage being focused on by R&D teams around the world graphene was sure to pop up in one of our articles again sometime soon.
Of course this is conjecture, and Nokia’s concept phone might not even use graphene. If it doesn’t it’s even more exciting, as a smartphone that could run on ambient radio waves without graphene would be even more viable with a super-capacitor than a standard lithium-ion or lithium-polymer battery. In fact, we're willing to bet that this isn't a graphene-based tech just yet, as the MIT Review article regarding the concept phone says that we could have this technology within three to four years and graphene research might still be too far in its infancy.
Either way, three to four years for a smartphone that doesn't lost power in standby? Yes please.
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