Wind Power…for Your Phone

The newest development in sustainable power for your mobile devices are micro windmills – tiny little generators only 1.8 millimeter wide and so thin that ten of them can fit on a single grain of rice. In fact, more than 2,000 of them could sit on the surface of an iPhone 4.

The idea is to place the windmills on a wafer or sleeve. When placed in front of a fan or an open window, or just waved in the air, they generate electricity with minimal effort.

They can be mass produced in arrays using a batch process very inexpensively. And because they’re made using a nickel alloy instead of brittle microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) they hold up well against the wind.

A Taiwan-based company is already exploring opportunities to commercialize the technology which could have far-reaching applications.