Cordless future
U of A team works on bright idea.
Imagine your next house with no wall plugs, and, finally, an end to that messy tangle of electric cords behind the television or around the computer desk.
The kitchen counter is clear of those heavy cords for the kettle, toaster oven or the blender. Just set the appliance down and it gets power from a strip of foil under the countertop.
University of Alberta professor Thomas Thundat and his team are bringing that future much closer with their experiments in new ways to transmit electricity in a “quasi-wireless” way.
Lead researcher Charles Van Neste, an engineering professor, demonstrated the technique this week with a lamp and 25-watt bulb. Instead of plugging the lamp into a wall plug, he just set it on a table that acts as a transmitter and sends the electric energy into a coil in the lamp — with no worries about electric shock.
The two professors called it single-wire transmission and it is being developed as part of Thundat’s $10-million awarded with Canadian Excellence in Research Chair in 2010.
Thundat’s research focuses on research into oilsands — molecular engineering, specifically — and applications are under development for reducing tailings ponds and extracting bitumen without the need for steam.
But meanwhile they have developed consumer applications, starting with a new type of “plugless” cellphone charger that may well be manufactured in Edmonton — if someone snaps up the licence for the new technology now being promoted by TEC Edmonton.
“That’s our goal — to have new industry started here in Edmonton,” says Van Neste.
By energizing a metal object with alternating current, the researchers can create a wireless hot spot on a table surface. The conductive surface can be cheap tin foil or a metal night stand.
Then Mom, Dad and the kids can just plunk their cellphones on the pad. The cellphone picks up the charge through a small coil inside and recharges the battery.
The electricity from a power source bounces back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball between the table top (the conductive surface) and the receiver. The lamp or cellphone charger picks up the bouncing electricity.
As cellphones, tablets and laptops proliferate, there has to be a better way to bring them electricity, he says.
“Imagine going to a con ference and instead of dozens of plug-ins to recharge computers and cellphones, you just set the device on a pad,” says Van Neste.
As for the oilsands, the technology could be used to heat the oilsands underground by putting rods deep into the ground and sending electricity down. That would avoid using massive amounts of water that is now sent underground as steam.
As for tailings ponds, the mucky water could be heated to increase evaporation, leaving only dry tailings that could be spread on the land, he said.
Thundat takes the idea even further.
You could put a conductive strip down one lane of the highway to Calgary and electric cars would have power all the way — no need to plug in at Red Deer, he suggests.