Designer pitches solar-powered AA battery
Clever roll-up panel
It’s time to bin recycle your traditional batteries, according to one designer who’s dreamt up a solar battery that can be rolled up and slotted into your gadgets.
The Solar Soft Battery
The Solar Soft Battery concept was designed by Wu Jian to provide an environmentally friendly way of collecting solar energy and an easy way to use in everyday gadgets.
Batteries not required, just sunshine
Simply lay the soft strip of solar cells out flat in the sun and, once they’ve soaked up enough rays, roll the strip up and slot it into an AA battery-sized tube. You can then slot it into your device.
The Solar Soft Battery does have a few potential drawbacks, though. Firstly, aside for TV remotes, most gadgets now run on batteries of all shapes and sizes. Secondly, a solar powered battery may only provide a short-term solution for power hungry gadget fans on the go.
It’s a nice idea, but not one that we think is likely to find its way to market anytime soon.
Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery
COMMENTS
This is old tech
This technology was demonstrated on BBC's Tomorrows World with working production run AA, C, and D cells containing 2/3 battery and 1/3 solar cell. Admittedly low capacity but with it being NiCad or nothing it was comparable to the alternative. If used with Li-Ion/Ni-MH/Li-Poly etc then it would have very good chance of going somewhere. I don't see anything really different from what was demonstrated nearly 20 years ago.
Not a very good designer.
What a silly way of making a roll up solar battery. Any smart ‘designer’ would instead opt for a solid battery core with a flexible solar sheet around it. Aside from fatigue (and more to go wrong), it would also eliminate the need for: a soft battery, soft electrode and a magical ‘nano material’. Me? I’ll remain with my more convenient and financially superior solution of using relatively higher capacity cells and my single external charger (wall/solar powered or otherwise) to charge cell in situ. (surely I didn't have to be a real ‘inventor’ with numerous inventive patents in my name to realise that)
My design (patent-pending) trumps yours...
... it has fuzzy dice,
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
Cloud based data management
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
