The system is based on a flat pad that plugs into the main electricity supply, called the SplashPad, and a SplashModule purpose-designed to reside within a piece of equipment and deliver direct current to charge the on-board battery. A SplashModule-enabled piece of equipment charges up while ever it sits on the SplashPad (see October 29 story).

The system works in a similar way to other inductive charging systems, including that used within rechargeable Braun electric toothbrushes, according to John Halfpenny, chief executive officer of Splashpower. But Halfpenny said that innovations made by the team at Splashpower had removed the need for the metallic core on which, for example, a chargeable electric toothbrush sits.

"It is essentially the same principle but now we can have a SplashPad of any size and shape and any number of items can sit on it and be charged in any orientation. It is based on inductive charging, but we've made it user-friendly. There no need to plug your phone onto a spigot. You can put other items down on the SplashPad and they won't heat up or become electrically charged. It's safe with credit cards and magnetic media," Halfpenny insisted.

"Up to a centimeter away from the SplashPad the energy transfer drops very slowly." The inductive coupling operates at a frequency of, "a few kilohertz," Halfpenny said.

"With the SplashModule we are aiming at the sub-10-watt space; mobile phones, PDAs, handheld games, music players. We have a roadmap that will take us to public access charging and laptops but that's a bit further along the road." Halfpenny said that for public access charging there needed to be a way of measuring the electrical charge delivery that could then be used for monetary charging.

"Already a couple of aircraft manufacturers have approached us about building SplashPads into the fold-down trays of aircraft seats," Halfpenny said.

The big benefit of the Splashpower system, Halfpenny argued is that items such as mobile phones fitted with an appropriate SplashModule would charge just as quickly as if they were plugged in to the mains, but would not require a power charging lead with integrated transformer. So adoption of the Splashpower could reduce size and weight for equipment while adding to convenience, he indicated.

"It charges at the same rate as if you plugged it in, by appropriate selection of the SplashModule parameters. You don't need a lot of componentry to make it work but our business model is a licensing model so we expect licensees to have their own implementations."

Splashpower was founded by Lily Cheng, who serves as chief technology officer, and James Hay, who serves as operations director. Both are engineering graduates from Cambridge University and Cheng has worked as a freelance designer and provided marketing services to the finance, manufacturing and service industries in southern China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.