This 'solar skin' can charge your headphones

''I’m Camilla Niva, head of production at Exeger. This is where we produce our ground-breaking material Powerfoyle which converts any light into energy.’’

Imagine a world without this mess of tangled charging cables.

Sweden's Camilla Niva is working on a green energy solution to the unsightly problem.

Her company's product – Powerfoyle, helps electronic devices charge themselves.

All you have to do is coat your device in what Niva calls ''special sauce’’.

The applied solar skin converts specks of light into energy - like a form of artificial photosynthesis.

"So here we're looking at Exeger's secret sauce. So this sauce is capturing the electrons that are transmitted through the other materials we're using and is allowing us to be efficient at also low light intensities and not only in the sun or when it's very strong light."

Niva has been at Exeger for nearly eight years.

The Stockholm-based company’s photovoltaic technology won the 2020 Grand Award of Design in Sweden, and is set apart from competitors by its ability to produce energy even from the tiniest light source.

"More light gives more energy even for Powerfoyle, but compared to other technologies we're much more efficient indoors and the products we're aiming at in many cases are to be used mainly indoors.’’

Niva says the new technology – which enables freeform printing to produce solar cells in any shape or size – is poised to usher in a new era of clean energy.

''So here we're looking at different sets of prototypes where Powerfoyle is used so here you can see the material integrated into the headphone."

Helmets and wireless headphones with integrated Powerfoyle are hitting the market later this year.

But smartphones is the market Niva is most looking forward to breaking into.

"What if you wouldn't have to worry about 'do you have a cord for your smartphone.’ That would be a true milestone because the phone, I mean the small computer, very powerful it needs so much energy that it's not worth it yet for that small area to put Powerfoyle on it but that, I want that, that's the first one, that's where I see a big change so that leap, and then."

But Niva admits it may be a while before Powerfoyle’s energy output can supply a smartphone’s near-constant thirst for energy.

In the future, the technology may also be able to be integrated into roofs, powerplants, cars and blinds.