E-Kaia power adapter extracts energy from plants, can charge mobile devices

You’ve always known that nearby plants were hoarding the power you needed to charge your iOS device.

Now it’s time to get that power back.

A new device called “E-Kaia”, developed by researchers in Chile, allows users to collect leftover energy created by photosynthesis to charge small devices, like mobile phones or LED lights, using a single healthy plant. As noted by the Manquehue Institute, the E-Kaia team says its invention can output as much as 5 volts at 0.6 amps.

By comparison, Apple’s USB power adapter for the iPhone pushes 5 watts at 1 amp.

Few details about the device are known, save for the fact that photosynthetic energy is captured from a nearby plant through a “biocircuit board”. This is not surprising, as the research group behind E-Kaia has a number of patents under review.

Creators Evelyn Aravena, Carolina Guerrero, and Camila Rupcich hope to commercialize E-Kaia this year, having received funding from the economic development arm of the Chilean government.

E-Kaia is not the first system of this type, but if the technology holds up it would prove to be by far the most efficient. Plant-e, based in the Netherlands, says its competing solution requires 100 square meters of plants to harvest a similar amount of energy.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Via AppleInsider