MISiS university team hopes to enable phone recharging from? campfire

A Russian scientific team at MISiS, a leading Moscow-based technology university, has come up with a way of generating energy in areas where there are no sources of electricity.

A Russian scientific team at MISiS, a leading Moscow-based technology university, has come up with a way of generating energy in areas where there are no sources of electricity, the Moskovsky Komsomolets website reports. To recharge a mobile phone, all one might now need is a source of thermal energy, like a campfire, the developers claim. According to the project researchers at MISiS? ceramic nanomaterials laboratory, any object that emits heat energy could be used as a recharger. For example, a specially designed bowl, or pot, to reheat or cook food over a campfire. A module containing thermoelectric cells is built into the bowl?s bottom. In its handle a USB cable is built with a connector to a mobile handset. One can thereby tap a temperature difference at the bowl?s opposite sides (one at the fire side, the other at the water side) to generate electricity. The greater the difference between the hot and cool sides of the material the bowl is made of, the more electricity can be generated, the source says...