It′s a common irritation these days，… you′re out and about and your phone battery is running low with no way of charging it.
Well，… those days may soon be over thanks to some groundbreaking work done by a group of Korean researchers.
Park Se－young has more.
This little strip can turn your body heat into electricity.
Created by a group of researchers from KAIST， the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology， the device was developed with a wearable phone charger in mind… and can be incorporated into clothing.
Early this year， the wearable thermoelectric generator won the UNESCO Netexplo Award， putting it at the top of a list of 10 IT innovations expected to change the world.
But the device still had its problems.
It wasn′t able to store very much of the electricity it generated.
Now， a team from Korea′s Institute for Basic Science has solved that problem using high－density particles that trap heat but allow electricity to flow through.
″This thermo－element is twice as efficient as previous ones. It′s also meaningful that we were able to achieve this at room temperature.″
Previous generators could only be used at high temperatures.
And the new material can easily be mass produced， so researchers see other applications for the technology in a variety of industries.
″Not only can we take human body heat， we can also take wasted heat from electronics， cars and factories and turn it into electricity.″
The finding， published in the Science journal， is expected to make wearable devices like smartwatches more viable for use in daily life.
It also opens doors to further research on green energy sources that make good use of wasted heat.
Park Se－young， Arirang News.
source
source https://gadgetsteam.com/2019/04/11/korean-researchers-make-advance-in-wearable-thermoelectric-generator-tech-%ea%b0%99%ec%9d%80-%ec%97%b4/
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