erkeley (CA) – Remarkable research findings on energy conversion have been published in the most recent edition of Nature: Scientists believe to have discovered a much more efficient way to use silicon to convert heat into electricity – for use in a variety of products ranging from cars to portable electronics.

Imagine a time in which you would not have to plug in your cellphone or iPod over night to recharge the battery. Instead you would power and charge a device simply by wearing it close to your body. The concept of converting waste heat into electricity isn’t exactly new, but it never really materialized due to efficiency hurdles. Now, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley think they may have found a key increase the conversion efficiency by a factor of 100.

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Imagine a time in which you would not have to plug in your cellphone or iPod over night to recharge the battery. Instead you would power and charge a device simply by wearing it close to your body.