Heat is a byproduct of our lives—things like our electronic devices and even our cups of coffee all radiate heat. This heat, however, could be put to good use.

That's the idea behind studies done by design students Sergey Komardenkov and Vihanga Gore from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction, who have proposed the use of their tech in Ikea furniture. Thermoelectric technology created by companies like Alphabet Energy would be used to turn the heat from anything placed on a table, such as a dinner plate or a cup of coffee, into usable energy.

The idea is called Heat Harvest, and it was developed at a lab run by Ikea. According to a description for the project, a laptop uses around 40 watts of electricity, emitting almost as much heat while it's operating. Heat Harvest desks would take heat from things placed onto an embedded pad, running that heat through a thermoelectric generator, and then pushing the energy back into a wireless charging dock for your phone.

The concept of turning heat into energy has been around for a long time now, but it hasn't been able to be turned into a reality until recently with developments in nanotech.

The main problem with thermoelectrics is that it requires a surface that is both a good conductor of electricity and a not-so-good conductor of heat. This is because the conversion process uses heat differences in a conductor to generate voltage. These materials have proven to be very rare and expensive, although there are a number of companies working on inexpensive solutions, making it possible to use the technology in consumer products.

It will likely be a while before we see thermoelectric technology implemented into Ikea furniture that can actually be bought. The point that Komardenkov and Gore have demonstrated, however, is that the emerging tech could be scaled down to suit our everyday lives.

Check out the video below detailing the tech.

Via: Gizmodo