From fruit to a portable turbine: How to charge your phone when there’s a power cut

MODERN life would quickly grind to a halt if the power supplies were suddenly knocked out.

Luckily there are a few clever - and downright batty - methods of charging up your smartphone without needing to plug it into the mains.

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There are obvious ways to get some juice in your gizmo, such as using a hand crank or a battery pack.

Others involve hacking a 9v battery or even plugging your smartphone into a piece of fruit.

However, we'd advise you to avoid trying some methods of getting power in your phone, because you could damage your gadget AND yourself at the same time.

You could also try making your phone last longer by deleting these apps.

But where's the fun in that?

Here are some of the wacky and sensible methods of charging up your phone during a power cut.

Hack a 9V battery

This method requires a 9V battery, the spring from a pen and a car charger adapter.

All you need to do is connect the metallic point of the car charger to one of the connectors on the battery, before attaching the spring to the other.

Finally, just connect the other end of the spring to the charger.

However, Matthieu Dubarry, an electrochemist at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and battery expert, that this method could blow your phone and cause an explosion with "as much power as a hand grenade".

"There’s a risk, and we don't want people getting hurt because they tried something off the internet without knowing about it," he said.

Don't try this one at home.

Build a battery from FRUIT

This is another dodgy method which could damage your phone, so proceed with caution.

You can see what to do in the video above, which

First you need to get a number of pieces of acidic fruit, such as lemons or oranges.

Then get one zinc nail and one copper nail into the fruit, making sure they don't touch.

Use copper wire to connect the zinc stuck inside one piece of fruit to the copper in another, so they form a circuit.

Then open up the USB end of your charging cord and connect the cables inside to the copper wires.

Theoretically, this should generate enough power to charge your phone - but there's a major risk you could damage it too.

Buy a battery pack

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This approach is handy if you know there's a power cut coming and want to prepare.

There are a number of battery packs on the market which should do the job.

One of the most popular is the which "weighs as little as a can of soup (12.5 oz) yet charges the iPhone 7 almost seven times, the Galaxy S6 five times or the iPad mini 4 twice" and costs just under £30.

Apple also makes an official battery case for its iPhones, which

But remember to keep them charged up because if they run out and the power is down, battery packs are as much use as a chocolate kettle.

Use a portable windmill

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One of the easiest ways of generating electricity is to use the power of the wind.

You could make your own windmill and connect it to a generator.

This approach could, theoretically, give you power indefinitely as long as the wind keeps blowing.

If you don't fancy doing any DIY, you could buy a product called "Portable Wind Turbine" from Vindur which costs $399.00 (£303).

It contains a battery which can store enough juice to power your phone up to six times.

Crank it up

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There are several gadgets which allow you to generate electricity using a hand crank.

The  has USB slots to plug in your gadgets and costs about £60.

Once you've cranked it up - which is no mean feat - it will provide enough energy to fully charge a phone.

Its manufacturers also claim that "one minute of cranking will generate enough power for a 30-second call or a few critical texts".

Start a fire

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We're not suggesting rubbing two sticks together and cooking your phone here, because that would be a disaster.

Several cooking devices also offer the ability to charge up your phone.

They work by harnessing the heat of a fire and using it to generate electricity.

One of the coolest of these devices is , which costs £134.

It burns wood and charges a battery.

Then after you've cooked your dinner, you can plug in your iPhone and get enough energy to post an image of the meal on Instagram.

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