Point Source Power. Point Source Power - Craig Jacobson. Point Source Power - VOTO Product Demonstration. Point Source Power, Inc. | Alameda, CA. Team. Medias. A generator that uses a virus to convert mechanical energy to electricity and a new material that will boost power storage in rechargeable batteries by 30 percent are among eight inventions by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists that were honored with a 2013 R&D 100 Award, often dubbed the “Oscars of Innovation.” Presented by R&D Magazine, the R&D 100 Awards recognize the year’s top 100 technology products from industry, academia, and government-sponsored research, ranging from chemistry to materials to biomedical breakthroughs... read more If you read this blog often, you may notice a few similarities between Power Practical’s PowerPot thermoelectric power generation devices, and a new solid oxide few cell gadget being offered by a Berkeley National Lab startup company, Point Source Power (PSP).
Just because someone is getting close to nature doesn't necessarily mean they need to ditch their smartphone. The device functions via a fire-activated fuel cell. This Device Turns A Charcoal Stove Into A Cell Phone Charger. VOTO is a new device that turns fire into a power source for cell phones. Now, where there's fire, there can be modern civilization! The key is a fire-activated fuel cell. The fuel-cell end of the device is placed into a stove, below the charcoal, and can stay there while the stove is used for cooking. The rest of the device juts out from the stove, looking like a pot handle, and the cell phone charges from a cord at the end of the VOTO (away from the fire, thankfully). Using oxygen from the air the fuel cell converts the burning carbon and hydrogen biomass into electricity.
VOTO isn't the first device to pair stoves and cell phones. The device is designed with two very different customers in mind: campers in the developed world that want to use some electric devices while out in nature, and people living in underdeveloped parts of the world who already have cell phones but lack home electricity. Watch the CEO explain the device below: How it works.