August 25, 2011

Every time you take a step you lose about 20 watts of power as heat. Researchers have now come up with a way to harness the heat from walking and turn it into energy. They say that converted energy could eventually be used to power electronics like smartphones, laptops or GPS units. Engineers at the University of Wisconsin call the invention a ‘footwear embedded energy harvester’.

The harvester that fits on the bottom of a shoe is based on a scientific principle called electrowetting. The UW researchers use reverse electrowetting to turn the motion of thousands of micro-droplets into an electrical current. The harvester would essentially be acting as an intermediate transceiver, to serve as a middle man between a mobile device and wireless network.

Researchers say the technology has a positive environmental impact by reducing the need for batteries. It would also benefit developing countries where charging electronics is difficult and expensive. The technology is not yet available but the UW scientists have created a company called InStep NanoPower to commercialize the energy harvesting technology.