Electromagnetic Harvester charges AA battery by exploiting radiant EM fields

Dennis Deigel’s EM Harvester can capture radiant energy from electromagnetic fields to charge a AA battery (via http://dennissiegel.de/electromagnetic-harvester/)

As part of a scientific venture into the global movement for sustainable energy harvesting - Dennis Siegel has constructed a palm-sized energy harvesting device capable of capturing radiant energy from the environment to charge a double-A battery. His project, the “Electromagnetic Harvester,” took second place in Digital Media at the University of the Arts Bremen’s recent Hochschulpreis 2013 art competition.

With the ubiquitous presence of electronic devices quickly constituting much of our immediate environment, Siegel’s project brings our awareness to the vast amount of pervading electromagnetic fields oscillating all around us. The electromagnetic spectrum can be thought of as the range of all possible electromagnetic energy levels from the lowest to the highest known frequency. This energy source, which encompasses physical matter and light, can be harvested from thin air if one can detect its presence and flow direction. Electric currents, such as those found in transmission lines, induce a surrounding EM field as the current flows away from its source.

Siegel’s device does just that - the handheld device is equipped with coils and high-frequency diodes that interact with electromagnetic fields that surround electronic devices, such as: cell phones, high-voltage lines, a coffee machine, etc. The harvester essentially gives the flowing EM waves a new path to flow into; this induces a current in the device that is then used to charge the AA battery.

An LED on top of the harvester lets the user know the strength of the EM field in their surrounding area. Two models were built for the design competition: one that operates at frequencies below 100Hz for harvesting energy from general mains (50/60Hz), and another capable of leaching higher frequencies like radio broadcasts (100Mhz), GSM (900/1800MHz), and Bluetooth or WLAN (2.4GHz).

Currently, Siegel has found that it would take a full day of radiant energy harvesting to charge the AA battery. For practical purposes, the device would need to be capable of harvesting energy that is being completely lost or wasted an energy source. For example, using the harvester to re-capture energy from a WLAN device may cause internet connection issues for the WiFi user. Though an impressive project, the EM harvester is really more of an art project to help envision the presence of radiant energy fields in our immediate environments and how we can interact with them. Still, devices such as these are important in creating a greater awareness to how humans can generate, harvest, and transmit energy using novel methods that can pave the way toward a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable energy future.

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