by Dennis Siegel
January 10, 2013
from Vimeo Website

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Student Invents Device

that Charges Batteries

with Radio and WIFI Waves

 

 


We are surrounded by electromagnetic fields which we are producing for information transfer or as a byproduct.

 

Many of those fields are very capacitive and carry more energy than required. The redundant energy can be harvested with coils and high frequency diodes. Accordingly to this I built special harvesting devices that are able to tap into several electromagnetic fields to exploit them.

 

The energy is getting stored in an usual battery.

 

So you can for example gain energy from the power supply of a coffee machine, a cell phone or the catenary of a train by holding the harvester directly into the electromagnetic field whose strength is indicated by a LED on the top of the harvester.

 

Depending on the strength of the field it is possible to charge a small battery within one day. The system is meant to be an option for granting access to already existing but unheeded energy sources.

 

By exploring these sources it can create a new awareness of the invisible electromagnetic spaces.

 

 


German university student, Dennis Siegel, invented a device that captures electromagnetic fields like WIFI and radio waves and converts them to stored energy in batteries.

His electromagnetic harvester won second place at this year's Digitale Medien (Digital Media) technology competition at the University of the Arts Bremen, Hochschulpreis when he successfully demonstrated charging one AA battery over the span of a day.

Siegel explains the device on his blog:

The omnipresence of electromagnetic fields is implied just by simple current flow.

 

We are surrounded by electromagnetic fields which we are producing for information transfer or as a byproduct. Many of those fields are very capacitive and can be harvested with coils and high frequency diodes.

 

Accordingly, I built special harvesting devices that are able to tap into several electromagnetic fields to exploit them. The energy is stored in an usual battery.

 

So you can for example gain redundant energy from the power supply of a coffee machine, a cell phone or an overhead wire by holding the harvester directly into the electromagnetic field whose strength is indicated by a LED on the top of the harvester.

Depending on the strength of the electromagnetic field it is possible to charge a small battery within one day. The system is meant to be an option for granting access to already existing but unheeded energy sources.

 

By exploring these sources it can create a new awareness of the invisible electromagnetic spaces while giving them a spatial dimension.

There are two types of harvester for different electromagnetic fields:

  • a smaller harvester that is suitable for lower frequencies below 100Hz which you can find in the general mains (50/60Hz, 16,7Hz)

  • a bigger one that is suitable for lower and higher frequencies like radio broadcast (~100MHz), GSM (900/1800MHz) up to Bluetooth and WLAN (2,4GHz)

Source

 

 

 

Building upon a concept originally hatched by the famous Serbian inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla, a German university student has come up with a novel way to harvest stray radio waves and wifi signals and turn them into usable energy.

 

Dennis Siegel's prototypical device is already capable of charging a small battery in as little as one day, and has the potential to power a whole lot more, a whole lot faster, with the right modifications.

The second-place winner in a technology competition at the University of the Arts Bremen, Hochschulpreis in Germany, Siegel's device takes advantage of the various stray electromagnetic fields that constantly surround us.

 

Radio waves, mobile phone signals, wireless router frequencies, and even stray energy emitted from overhead power lines can all be harvested by the device and reused as battery power in the many electrical devices we all rely on today.

"We are surrounded by electromagnetic fields which we are producing for information transfer or as a byproduct," explains Siegel on his blog about the device.

 

"Many of those fields are very capacitive and can be harvested with coils and high frequency diodes. Accordingly, I built special harvesting devices that are able to tap into several electromagnetic fields to exploit them."

Siegel's device is small, about the size of mobile phone, and is equipped with a simple light-emitting diode (LED) indicator that detects the presence of usable energy waves.

 

And there are currently two types of harvester available, one that picks up lower frequencies below 100 Hz, which can be obtained from general mains, and another that pick frequencies both lower and higher frequencies, including those originating from,

  • radio broadcasts

  • mobile phones

  • Bluetooth devices

  • WLAN

 

"Depending on the strength of the electromagnetic field it is possible to charge a small battery within one day," adds Siegel.

 

"The system is meant to be an option for granting access to already existing but unheeded energy sources. By exploring these sources it can create a new awareness of the invisible electromagnetic spaces while giving them a spatial dimension."

As some readers will recall, Nikola Tesla's work with high-tension induction coils and wireless energy transmission via electrostatic induction back in the late 1800s basically laid the initial groundwork for Siegel's recent discovery.

 

It has been known by some for more than a century, in other words, that energy can be transmitted wirelessly, or in this case captured and utilized without wires.

Source