Using windmills in non-traditional places — like the roofs of high-rise office buildings and stadia — is already an accepted way of harnessing wind energy to generate electricity. But students at the University of Texas at Arlington want to put windmill power in the palm of your hands.

The Houston Chronicle reports on engineering students at UTA who, when charged with the task of figuring out uses for a new alloy, came up with the idea of teensy, tiny windmills — smaller than 2 mm — that could be placed into an array in a smartphone’s sleeve.

By moving that sleeve through the air, the wee windmills — a grain of rice could hold 10 of them — could generate electricity to recharge the phone’s battery.

A professor at UTA says the school is looking for a commercial partner to develop the windmill tech further and says there is already interest from a Taiwanese firm.

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