Plant powered phone charger

[Frick]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bioo-charge-your-phone-with-the-power-of-a-plant#/

It is what it sounds. A pot in which you plant a plant and you connect your USB stuff to it.

It has at least two important hallmarks of a scam revolutionary product: mention of both NASA and nanowires.

I don't know enough to say wether it's plausible or not, nor have I read about whatever NASA was up to to inspire this. It sounds much too good to be true.

 

[BiggieShady]

Don't they know photosynthesis doesn't expel energy absorbed from the sun ... it converts it into synthesis of sugar. Majority of energy from the sun ends up in bonds between all the carbon atoms in the long chains that make plant sugar (starch).

This could work if the plant is potato, and below all the potatoes is a pool with electrical eels trained to eat the potatoes above them. /endsarcasm

On a serous note, micro-organisms in the soil do have symbiotic relationship with the plant roots, but that's not where the energy of photosynthesis ends up, they help plant's mineral extraction from the soil. The soil doesn't get enriched by the plant unless it dies.

 

[silentbogo]

I think I'll be more successful charging my phone the old way - with lemons
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/experiments/exp/charging-ipods-with-lemons/

I was recently reading about a Burnton Hydrogen Reactor, which is basically a miniature hydrogen fuel cell. If you skip the plant part - it works exactly the same (H2 + O2 = H2O + electricity) and is absolutely unsuitable for charging anything. Initially they've claimed a 10W[!!!] output, while now it is only listed as 5V 400mA. Most unfortunate consumers reported barely third of that.

In this case these guys are using some ridiculous chemically infused flower pot to gather water droplets from the plant, somehow chemically(magically) split it into H and OH ions, combine it with some oxygen from the air and make it charge the phone. As smart as it sounds, it is probably the funniest thing after the idea of splitting water with electrolysis to use H2 and O2 as fuel to generate electricity in a fuel cell ))

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I do have a lot of obvious concerns about it.
-I assume it has some kind of battery in it but I don't get the impression, at all, that it is replaceable. In other words, you'll probably have to replace the whole damn thing every 5 years or so. Edit: says it's only "garenteed" for a year. They go on to say it "should work for 2 to 3 years."
-"bioo panel" says "Exponential Electrical Production." Uh, how? It should be linear. Everyone you add adds more power. It's only exponential if you increase the count of them exponentially.
-"Chemical additives," wait, what? Also, "bacteria."
-The explanation of how it generates electricity is sorely lacking. @BiggieShady does a better job about how it would have to work if it were legitimate. If they can't explain the process themselves then they failed as a project.
-They never say how much the potter one is supposed to produce. The "bioo panel" is "3-40 watts." That's quite a spread.
-There's so many grammar problems but I guess that's forgivable because they're a Spanish outfit.
-They only target 1 amp output where most phones and tablets charge at much higher than that now (at least 2 amps).

Yeah, it stinks of Solar Roads to me which, ironically, was also on Indie Go Go.

Edit:

Hi, it includes an extensive variety of substances involving several carbon-based organic compounds mainly generated by derivatives from glucose, mucilage and lysates. These substances are expelled in the rhizodeposition process of plants.

So it is supposedly uses chemicals and bacteria to convert sugar into electricity.

Maybe? Sugar-powered biobattery has 10 times the energy storage of lithium: Your smartphone might soon run on enzymes


I suppose I could see it working but I ain't touching it with a 10' pole until I could for sure restock it so it doesn't turn to garbage after 3 years. It's not very "green" if it has such a short product lifecycle.

 

[BiggieShady]

... These substances are expelled in the rhizodeposition process of plants ...

So it has something to do with this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18497165
They claim up to 330 watts per hectare:

Living plants transport substantial amounts of organic material into the soil. This process, called rhizodeposition, provides the substrate for the rhizospheric microbial community. In this study, a laboratory-scale sediment microbial fuel cell, of which the anode is positioned in the rhizosphere of the rice plants, is used to microbially oxidize the plant-derived organics. An electrical current was generated through the in situ oxidation of rhizodeposits from living rice plants. The electrical power output of a sediment microbial fuel cell was found to be a factor 7 higher in the presence of actively growing plants. This process offers the potential of light-driven power generation from living plants in a nondestructive way. Sustainable power productions up to 330 W ha(-1) could be attributed to the oxidation of the plant-derived compounds.

So one big ass plant pot with area of 1 square meter would produce up to 33 mW

 

[Caring1]

A solar panel the size of the phones cover should make that much.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

So one big ass plant pot with area of 1 square meter would produce up to 33 mW

And they claim 3-40w! Bullocks!

 

[silentbogo]

Hah!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hush-plug-control-via-smartphone-from-anywhere#/