German boffins turn body heat into power source

Some very bright chaps at the Fraunhofen Institute in Germany reckon they’ve found a way to convert body heat into a source of power–albeit with very low voltage.

In future, they hope to use this method to find a practical way to power electronic devices, rather than relying on batteries that cut out after a few hours. More at DailyTech:

That means that with such a small temperature difference, the amount of electricity generated is very low voltage. The TEG can deliver 200 millivolts when most electronics require one or two volts to operate.

“We combined a number of components in a completely new way to create circuits that can operate on 200 millivolts,” says Peter Spies, manager of this sub-project at the IIS. “This has enabled us to build entire electronic systems that do not require an internal battery, but draw their energy from body heat alone.”

It all sounds splendid to Greenbang. In fact, we’re planning to pop off to the beach to charge up our gadgets.