This article was taken from the August 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
The Current Table from London-based designer Marjan van Aubel (pictured) doesn't just sit there looking cool -- it can charge your smartphone. The trick is in that fetching shade of orange."The surface of the table is made of dye-sensitised solar cells, which use the properties of colour to create a current," explains van Aubel, 29. The technique, pioneered by material scientist Michael Grätzel at the Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, is inspired by photosynthesis and uses nanoparticles of titanium oxide in the glass, which are dyed orange. The colour helps the particles absorb any ambient light; they then release electrons, creating a current that's stored in a battery.
The idea came to van Aubel while researching her dissertation in product design at the Royal College of Art. "I found it interesting that colour, which is normally used for aesthetics, had this double function," she says. She has also used the technique to produce a line of solar glassware called the Energy Collection. "The words
'green' and 'durable' normally mean ugly," she says. "My aim is to create sustainable products that are nice to live with."
Fully charging an iPhone using one of the table's two USB ports takes eight hours, so van Aubel foresees users topping up during a meal or meeting. She wants to mass-produce the table while looking into new uses for dye-sensitised cells. "Next is developing it into windows," she says. Forget black -- orange is the new transparent.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
