So-Phono

Solar Phone Charger

Alexa Urbanik
AP Environmental Science
Period 5
May 5th, 2016

Table of Contents
Position3
History.3
Inventor.3
About SPC...3,4
Statistics..4,5

Now-a-days, everyone has a smartphone of some kind. According to a company

study, it takes about 10.5 watt-hours of electricity to fully charge an IPhone 6. In the
early 2000s, the original inventor Po-Jung (John) Hsu came up with the solar powered
phone charger. I went into further investigation on Po-Jung and this is his summary of
the invention. A portable, cellular phone battery charger using solar energy as the
primary source of power and including two separate solar panels and a battery/switch
containing unit. The two panels are hingedly connected together, and the battery/switch
containing unit is hingedly connected to the back side of one of the panels. The
assembly is pivotable between a retracted configuration in which the three component
parts lie in parallel planes, and a deployed configuration in which the two solar panels
lie in one plane and the battery/switch unit lies in another plane angularly intersecting
the solar panel plane. The device is selectively operable in three different modes;
namely, a first mode in which the solar panels are connected to charge or power a cell
phone; a second node in which the solar panels are connected to charge the device's
internal battery, and a third mode in which the internal battery is used to charge or
power a phone coupled to the device. The interesting part about this is that it can

charge three different things. One of them being the actual device itself, the other your
device, and the last being that it can charge a phone hooked up to the actual charger.
This is a fairly new topic so there isn't much information on the inventor or much about
his standings itself.
There are many companies that are coming out with new solar powered phone
chargers. One article says that Anker PowerPort Solar Lite is the best one on the
market. This claims that it is much smaller and can charge your phone faster than any
other solar power phone charger. All of these companies have the same goal, to
eliminate electricity as much as possible and use solar powered energy. Although
smartphones and tablets use less energy than a computer would, eventually in the
future there would be
a

solar powered
chargers for that as

well.

We have stated
above that
smartphones use

less

electricity. But the

more we use the

electricity the more energy it is going to take up in the future. We have a pie graph that
shows the different energy consumptions in
1978, and 2005. Energy jumped from 17% to
31%. 2005 was also 11 years ago so just image
what the pie diagram would be now. We need to

start using solar powered chargers to help bring those numbers down more. Last week,
I have asked fifty teenagers who use their phone daily this question. If solar powered
phone chargers were used more often, would you rather use that or plug your charger
into the wall? Twenty-eight out of fifty said that they would use the solar phone
chargers. I asked Natalie Kofie why she would use it instead of an adapter from a wall
and she said this. I think that our generation is not as active as we were when we were
little. If we had solar phone chargers around more, people would be going outside often
and being more active. Many people are on the opposite side of the spectrum. Many
say that it could be too expensive or not even worth it. The manual only promises a

charge if you hold the phone at a 90-degree angle to the sun, and Sprint
estimates that you'll receive 20 minutes more talk time after an hour of sun
worship.
That means, in order for the solar backing to pull any charging weight, you'll have
to be outdoors for at least 30 minutes on a sunny day, with the case positioned
just so. (cnet.com).
Although you may have to
be outside for 30 minutes,
they are making it seem like
it is 30 hours. Even though
you have to position that
particular solar phone
charger in a certain way,
that is not how all of them
are.
In conclusion, solar
powered phone chargers

could be the new future. It is saving us electricity and going outside for a little bit
a day won't kill you.

Citations
http://www.upsbatterycenter.com/blog/what-are-the-benefits-of-solar-poweredcell-phone-chargers/
http://www.cnet.com/news/are-mobile-solar-chargers-worth-it/

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-portable-solar-battery-pack/
http://www.goalzero.com/
http://www.selectsolargadgets.co.uk/cat/170/charing-mobile-phones-with-solar-power
https://blog.opower.com/2012/09/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charge-an-iphone-5-a-thoughtprovokingly-modest-0-41year/
http://momprepares.com/solar-chargers-are-they-worth-the-money/
https://www.google.com/patents/US6977479?dq=ininventor:%22Po-Jung+(John)+Hsu
%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNv6Wq68DMAhUJn4MKHXZ7AqAQ6AEIHDAA