New York, Feb 22 (IANS): Vibration energy from a surface like the passenger seat of a moving vehicle to power your smart phone?

Yes. It's possible as engineers have developed a way by which your smart phones battery would recharge itself without the need for an electrical cord.

Incorporated directly into a cell phone housing, the team's nano-generator could harvest and convert vibration energy from a surface into power for the phone.

"We believe this development could be a new solution for creating self-charged personal electronics,” said Xudong Wang, an assistant professor of engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wang and his others from Sun Yat-sen University in China and the University of Minnesota Duluth described their device a mesoporous piezoelectric nano-generator.

The nano-generator takes advantage of a common piezoelectric polymer material called polyvinylidene fluoride, or PVDF.

In the case of a cell phone, it uses the phone's own weight to enhance its displacement and amplify its electrical output.

This sponge-like material is key to harvesting vibration energy.

“The softer the material, the more sensitive it is to small vibrations,” added Wang.

The findings were published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.