The company’s patent-pending M2E™ solution has the potential to fundamentally transform the manner in which mobile devices are powered.

The solution consists of a micro-generator combined with traditional battery storage to create a system that captures the kinetic energy of normal everyday motion—human or vehicular—to generate electricity sufficient to power mobile devices. The M2E mobile solution can take a variety of form factors, including microchip, AA, D, cell phone, etc. In larger scale generators M2E can be fitted into any generator using a magnet and coil configuration.

Unlike other similar solutions, M2E has achieved a unique power breakthrough which can comfortably meet the power requirements of larger mobile devices like cell phones, PDA’s and digital cameras. M2E can be produced from standard components and its manufacturing cost is about the same as traditional lithium batteries (due to the reduced need for expensive battery material in the M2E solution).

“D” cell and Prismatic cell phone applications
The M2E solution originated at the Idaho National Lab, a Department of Energy-funded research group charged with developing a mobile power solution to ease the military’s burden on battery dependency. M2E Inventor Eric Yarger and his team at the INL took up that challenge and created M2E, an innovation in the architecture of magnetics and coils with broad applicability to motor generators of every size.

In late 2005, INL provided a global exclusive license to M2E Power. The Idaho-based company has since engineered several significant innovations which led to the filing of six patents that enable the commercialization of this breakthrough technology. Testing of the D cell prototype and prototyping of other form factors is underway that will deliver linear, rotary and multi-axis configurations. These configurations will allow manufacturers more freedom in the industrial design of their products because the M2E system can be implemented in a decentralized manner within a single device or across multiple devices.

The M2E solution offers a paradigm shift in continuous power generation. It utilizes similar principles as those found in the shaker flashlight and self-charging watch batteries. (The Faraday Principle produces energy via the motion of a magnet through a wire coil.) However, these and other similar solutions are limited in their power output to simple low-wattage applications. M2E Power has developed a series of key patent-pending innovations that together produce an order of magnitude increase in power generation within a small footprint. This dramatic leap in energy production provides sufficient power to comfortably address a larger and more meaningful variety of electronic devices. The solution is productized as a combination of energy generation (micro power) integrated with energy storage (battery) components.

The value proposition for such a breakthrough is significant: