The microwave typically has one use: heating leftovers. But now, it could soon be a handy cellphone charger, as well.
Researchers from the University of Tokyo are working on ways to harvest the wasted energy that microwaves produce while they run. When heating, microwaves continuously lose energy that could be put to better use. Engineer Yoshihiro Kawahara and his research team have designed a machine to gather and recycle that wasted energy.
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Here's how it works: The harvester has an antenna that picks up any excess energy, and channels it to other devices. However, the microwave probably won't replace your cellphone charger just yet. Federal regulations limit the amount of energy that is allowed to leak from a microwave to "far below the level known to harm people," according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
As a result, you would need to run your microwave for an extended period of time in order to generate any type of meaningful charge. Initial tests from Kawahara found that running the microwave for two minutes generated enough energy to power kitchen devices, such as a timer with small batteries, for only a few minutes. Regardless, if the technology was built into kitchen appliances, it would help consumers decrease their carbon footprint without any extra effort.
The idea for Kawahara's experiment came from NASA, where scientists are trying to harvest wasted energy from the sun. A NASA project still in development aims to send solar farms to orbit the earth, and catch the sun's excess energy; that energy would then be beamed down to earth in the form of radio waves.
Would you charge your phone using a microwave? Tell us in the comments, below.
Image: Flickr, Homespothq