An interesting new patent was published last week detailing how an environmentally friendly mobile phone could be made from bamboo featuring a nanotech coating.

The patent, filed June 2006, shows how the phone would have a full range of functions including sterilizing, deodorizing, antifouling and self-cleaning, internet browsing, listening to MP3, taking photographs, infrared and bluetooth transmission and wireless 3G communication.

According to the patent the phone would have a bamboo casing with an “outer surface and a coating containing nanoparticles”. Bamboo has been chosen as it is “natural and recyclable”. The bamboo would be pre-treated with gamma-rays making it more durable and removing any bacteria, moisture, debris and contamination. To make the phone even more high tech the bamboo would be coated with nanoparticles such as titanium dioxide, silver or zinc dioxide.

Other high tech features include a camera which “may be in a range from 0.3 megapixels to 8 megapixels” and functions such as “sterilizing, deodorizing, antifouling and self-cleaning.”

Bamboo phone

An exemplary environmentally-friendly mobile phone includes a main body and a housing enclosing the main body therein. The housing is made of bamboo. The housing has an outer surface and a coating containing nanoparticles is formed on the outer surface thereof The environmentally-friendly multifunctional mobile phone is friendly to environment and users due to having functions such as sterilizing, deodorizing, antifouling and self-cleaning, internet browsing, listening to MP3, taking photographs, infrared and bluetooth transmission, wireless 3G communication, having microdrive, storing changes and so on.

[0003] Nowadays many people are concerned about the environment. Conventionally, mobile phones use metals or plastics in their construction. However, metals and plastics are not necessarily satisfying materials. For example, metals are usually expensive and plastics usually need electroplating to improve property thereof, so that mobile phones have high cost. Furthermore, these materials are prone to absorbing contamination and bacterium, which can be harmful to health of mobile phones users. In particularly, it is worth mentioning that plastics can cause environmental pollution because those plastics are not dissoluble by natural decomposition. Thus, wastes of these products are harmful to environment.

[0004] What is needed, therefore, is an environmentally-friendly mobile phone.