Charge Battery Through Water: Is It Possible?

[techtalk]

Hi,
Im a young entrepreneur with absolutely no electrical engineering experience whatsoever. I've thought of a product that I think might be viable but I need to make sure its possible.

It would require an object to charge through water. Is this possible? For example, as an analogy imagine an object floating in a bucket of water. This object uses electricity but instead of having to take it out and replace its batteries all the time is there any way to recharge its battery through the water? I've read a little about inductive charging but being that I don't have electrical engineering experience I don't really understand whether or not its what I am looking for. And furthermore, I don't understand how to apply it. Are there any other methods? What if there was an open current through the water (better not touch it), will it charge the battery? (that seems a little too simple to work but hey can't hurt asking)

Thanks, I appreciate any insight you guys can give.

 

[sophiecentaur]

It really depends on the actual setup. How much power do you need to transfer and how close can you get to the object?

Inductive coupling with high frequency current could work or photo cells lit from a high power lamp.

The numbers are important in a system like this so more details are needed.

 

[Averagesupernova]

Sophie pretty much nailed it. Lots of unimaginable things are possible but on a limited scale.

 

[Mike_In_Plano]

It's possible to transfer energy through water. It's done with implants.

The difficulties lie in the degree. Transferring power through 3/4" - 1" involves substantial stress on the transmitting components only to receive a moderate (i.e. .01 - 1watt) on the receiving end.

I've made higher power transmitters (~10 watt) transmit over about 1", but the coils were on the order of 3" in diameter and the currents were in the tens of amps at 3/4 MHz.