This week the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Samsung that reveals an invention tapping into the power generating benefits of using triboelectric generators on future smart device displays to keep devices running longer without recharging.
To understand this technology a little better, we provide you with this 2013 introductory video from a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Professor Wang is using what's technically known as the triboelectric effect to create surprising amounts of electric power by rubbing or touching two different materials together.
Professor Wang believes the discovery can provide a new way to power mobile devices such as sensors and smartphones by capturing the otherwise wasted mechanical energy from such sources as walking, the wind blowing, vibration, ocean waves or even cars driving by.
Samsung's first patent covering the use of this technology for future smart devices was revealed this week at the US Patent and Trademark Office.
In Samsung's patent FIG. 1 noted below we're able to see a perspective view of a smartphone that includes both a standard touch input module #120 disposed on the display of the smartphone along with a new energy generating device #130 disposed on the touch input module.
Samsung's new energy generating device is flexible and may be phototransmissive for transmitting light emitted by the display. Furthermore, the energy generating device may have a relatively small thickness equal to or below about 1 mm.
The energy generating device may also include at least one of a piezoelectric generator and a triboelectric generator.
The piezoelectric generator may generate electric energy when a piezoelectric material is deformed by a mechanical force due to a touch to the touch input module or a mechanical force applied from outside, such as pressure, deformation, distortion, bending, vibration, or sound.
The triboelectric generator may generate electric energy when friction is formed between two layers formed of different materials by an external mechanical force or a distance between two layers is changed by an external mechanical force.
Samsung's patent FIG. 7 noted above is a sectional view of the energy generating device #130e which includes a hybrid generator designed as a combination of a piezoelectric generator and a triboelectric generator.
Samsung's invention could be applied by using triboelectric technology into a top film of a smartphone or tablet. The user's actual touching, tapping and rubbing the display in everyday usage could generate new energy that's fed back to the battery.
It was noted in a 2013 report that Samsung is one of the sponsors of this research. You could read more about this here.
Samsung filed their US patent application back in December 2013. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
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