There is genuine concern about what the battery of the future will look like and its ability to last with all the cutting-edge gadgets coming up like the iPhone 15 and Apple Vision Pro. But a group of researchers seems to have it all figured out and wants to charge your future device with your tears.
The above paragraph could be interpreted as a joke or an idea straight out of a bad piece of science fiction. But the reality is that we are facing a frank possibility with the creation of a new type of battery that would not need cables, metals or other toxic elements.
A few weeks ago, the technological community discovered that the Apple Vision Pro Mixed Reality viewer would have a really limited battery life. What detonated a serious debate on the real functionality of this type of artifacts.
Apple’s device, in the best of cases, would provide a range of just two hours for each session of use before requiring a connection to a cable to stay operational.
This is a ridiculous amount of time that also reveals the range of energy and resources that a system of this type would require that mixes both Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in its interface.
The solution to the battery problem of the future for VR headsets: the tears of its users
It turns out that a group of researchers from the Singapore Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has created a new kind of battery battery that is as thin as a human cornea and that recharges itself with the simple act of being submerged in saline fluid. I mean, tears.
This battery, according to the publication of the paper of study in ScienceDirectit only needs glucose and water to generate electricity, plus it is made of biocompatible materials.
It does not contain wires or toxic metals in its constitution and by testing it by running it on a simulated tear fluid with sodium and chloride ions (like the one that tears contain) it was possible to verify that the useful life of the battery was extended up to an hour more for each twelve hour duty cycle.
The best news is that this prototype can produce 45 microamps of current with a peak power of 201 microwatts, enough to power a smart contact lens in the future.
In other words, this battery is the perfect candidate to be integrated into the futuristic devices that would take over from the iPhone and Apple Vision Pro itself.
Now it is time to perfect the cycles of its autonomy, but the most important step, to verify its effectiveness, has been completed.