Methanol Fuel-Cell Battery For Your Laptop?

Nick writes: "I ran across this accidentally when I was researching fuel cell cars. They have come out with a little methanol fuel-cell battery they hope will be more powerful than lithium ion batteries, at competitive prices too! (well, in five years maybe) Also check out howstuffworks for a great article on fuel cells in general." Beating Li-Ion batteries by a factor of ten is a very worthy goal.

Comments

This was posted before...

[diadem]

A similar article was posted here before, dealing with Methane batteries for cell phones.

Just remember:

[mrpotato]

don't drink the batteries: methanol will get you blind, ethanol will get you drunk.

it remains to be seen...

[egomaniac]

It remains to be seen how people will react to having to 'refill' their laptops. It won't take too many methanol spills on the carpeting for somebody to bail on the whole idea.

Batteries suck compared to fuel cells, certainly, but just plugging the laptop in to recharge is about the nicest possible way to deal with power. I know I'd rather carry around an AC adapter than a container of methanol. Further, I don't have to run to the store to buy more electricity when I run out; people may react badly to needing to buy refills.

I love the concept as much as the next guy, but I've been wondering if the practicalities won't end up killing it in the marketplace.

Re:it remains to be seen...

[jht]

I think ultimately you'll see disposable fuel cell "batteries", and/or an infrastructure where you can buy a little cheap pre-filled tank of fuel for it, much as you buy a battery off the shelf today.

Only some of the more esoteric applications will have end-users directly filling the tank themselves. But if you think about it, most portable power applications today excepting laptops) use a disposable battery - so that is easy to replace with compact, disposable tanks. I think laptops will have hybrid power systems, with perhaps a Li-Ion battery embedded in the machine, and a small fuel cell to provide continuous charging of the battery - and it'd run off AC power when stationary.

Given the higher power output and density of a fuel cell versus even a Li-Ion battery, having spares handy isn't quite so important. You don't have to stay so close to a refill point when your runtime is measured in days instead of hours.

Re:it remains to be seen...

[MadCow42]

Who says it has to be the "only" power source in the laptop? Why couldn't you also have a Li-Ion battery and an AC charger as other power options, and swap as the need fits.

I'm sure that the airlines would have an issue with me using a methane-powered device on an airplane... so plug in the Li-Ion. Or, you run out of methane... plug in the AC and Li-Ion for recharging at the same time. It's just as easy as carrying around a spare battery like a lot of people do already.

MadCow.

Re:it remains to be seen...

[ncc74656]

It remains to be seen how people will react to having to 'refill' their laptops. It won't take too many methanol spills on the carpeting for somebody to bail on the whole idea.

At least it wouldn't raise the questions that an ethanol fuel cell would raise. "Honestly, boss, the Everclear is for my computer!"

Re:it remains to be seen...

[Anonymous Coward]

You were concerned about the cost of methanol
verses the cost of electricity. In fact they
both cost about the same. One gallon of gasoline
in a car engine produces about 100-200 MJ of
energy, or 27-55 KWhr. This costs about $1.30
meaning that a gasoline engine produces usable
energy at a cost of about 2-5 cents per KWHr,
which is roughly what it costs from your
electricity supplier.

Of course Methanol has a lower energy density
than gasoline, however, fuel cells are much
more efficient than gasoline engines.

It is also worth noting that it takes much less
time to recharge a methanol battery (replace
the methanol container) than to recharge a Li-Ion
battery.

Even if you were to refill the battery directly
with methanol, it would far more likely come
in an aerosol form than a pourable liquid. In fact
this is the way liquid cigarette lighters are
refilled, without any spillage problems.

Methanol fuel cell

[SolidCore]

Hazards incurred by gasoline releases are greater than those of methanol releases, and will persist much longer in the environment.A recent study performed by EA Engineering examined what the costs would be to implement different methanol retail systems. They concluded that a new methanol retail system could be installed for approximately $70,000 and an existing gasoline tank could be cleaned, the pumps and plumbing replaced for as little as $19,000.

Moron

[purduephotog]

I hope you were kidding about that... Methanol is highly toxic and leads to blindness and kidney failure.

Then again, I haven't read a good Darwin award lately....

I'll get one as soon as it comes out.

[Typingsux]

That way, instead of having to keep a dog and blame it for my farting, I can say it was the laptop again.

Why methanol?

[Manuka]

Someone needs to come up with an ethanol fuel cell, and when you run out, just fill it back up with cheap vodka.

Great news everybody!

[Exmet Paff Daxx]

That guy on the bus who plays Quake on his notebook computer just got ten times as annoying!

Seriously though, how do you recharge a fuel cell. The howstuffworks article covers hydrogen fuel cells which you recharge by... inserting more hydrogen. They also make water, bad for notebooks. This prototype looks like a sealed system and being billed as a replacement for Li-Ion, which means it's rechargeable and doesn't leak. "Carbon nanotubes" are very cool but there's nearly no mention of an application to new forms of fuel cells in the literature. This press release is great but... where's the science?

Just curious.

Small? Memory? Recharging time?

[rice_burners_suck]

What I'd like to know is whether these batteries will have a so-called memory. Until Li-Ion batteries became common in laptops, cell phones and camcorders, I remember that you had to completely empty out the batteries before recharging them or you'd drastically shorten their lives. For example, let's say you have a 30-minute battery for your camcorder. If you used it for 15 minutes and then charged it, then from now on, the battery will only last 15 minutes. This can be a little annoying for a camcorder, because if your battery was partially empty and you wanted it full to record some event, you'd have to plan ahead and leave the camera running to empty out the battery, then wait several hours for it to completely recharge. (Yeah, recharging times were very slow on these batteries.) On the other hand, while this is merely annoying for cameras, think of the effect it has on laptops--you'd have to leave your laptop running until it runs out of power and shuts off abruptly. This is a constant problem for computers. Li-Ion batteries are not subject to this "memory" problem, and they also charge pretty quickly, if I know what I'm talking about. For example, the battery in my phone lasts about three days (one if I talk a lot) and takes only hours to charge. (I don't know exactly how many hours because I've never sat there watching the damn thing.) If these fuel-cell batteries are small, don't have a memory, last longer AND have much faster charging times, then I think they will eventually replace Li-Ion batteries.

Carts Re:it remains to be seen...

[StefanJ]

Prototypes were depicted as using sealed, pen-sized cartridges. No filling necessary. I imagine that screwing them into the fuel cell would break a seal allowing a controlled stream of methanol to be fed into the reformer.

I suppose that the manufacturer would initially charge a lot for these, but refill kits would appear shortly.

Stefan

Re:Longer battery life.

[ncc74656]

The Palm's a great example, but even that only lasts 2 weeks tops on 2 AAA batteries.

2 weeks? Are you leaving it on all the time? I usually get at least as many months out of mine. Even when I was scribbling class notes into one, it still got fairly good battery life. It's set to shut off by itself after one minute of inactivity, though I usually shut it off before that kicks in.

enough with the spills already!

[Anonymous Coward]

People, people, people... if methanol fuel cells become a reality, you can be sure they will be fairly well self-contained. If you're so worried about spills, do you were a hazmat suit everytime you fill up your car with EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS AND FLAMABLE GASOLINE?

I grow tired of the "gee that can't work, it might spill" everytime fuel cells are mentioned on slashdot.

Uh Oh!

[BoarderPhreak]

With a fuel cell, I guess Apple's problem of self-igniting PowerBooks should be REAL interesting soon...

Methanol toxicity

[sterno]

While you certainly shouldn't start downing shots of methanol, it really isn't terribly toxic by comparison. If you got it on your clothes it would simply evaporate. The heavy metal sludge you find in most modern batteries makes methanol look pretty tame by comparison. It also means that the environmental impact of the used up batteries will be far less than current batteries.

Chemistry Lesson

[sterno]

Okay folks:

Ethanol - the alcohol that makes beer, wine, and liquor much more fun.

Methanol - the alcohol that, if you drink it, will at the very least blind you and probably do a bunch of other damage to your organs.

Methane - the end result of having chili for lunch

It is not fart powered, and you can't run it on Stoli, okay?

Did some due diligence on this....

[nellardo]

I did some due diligence on this kind of technology for a VC firm out of the Bahamas. They were considering investing in a spin-out from the Jet Propulsion Lab. If you check you'll see a dorky researcher holding a prototype and if you go here you'll see a newer stack. You can also read a bit about it.

The one I saw, intended for eventual use in cell phones, was basically what looked like a sandwich of plexiglass and some spongy material. Two wires ran off from the sponge to connect to the contacts for a small fan. You'd take a bottle of methanol, squirt it on the sponge, and the fan would start to spin, slowly at first, and building up in speed as the cell heated up to optimum temperature (which I think was around 50-60 degrees celsius).

Cell phones make a good first application for this kind of technology (as opposed to cars) because the price/performance ratio is high (cell phones are expensive for the amount of power they use) and the performance/weight is relatively low (you don't need a really big stack to drive cell phone). If the fuel-cell cell phone (or even just a widget to replace the battery) costs ten times as much, but lasts ten times as long, is fully "rechargeable" with a one-minute application of methanol (which could come in sealed, disposable plastic tubes, or you could fill it the same way you fill a butane lighter), and has no "memory" problems, then you've got a real winner. People will pay $1000 for a cell phone (they did when the StarTAC first came out).

A car that costs ten times as much doesn't work, because that puts even a cheapie car into six figures. You have to get the price-performance ratio of fuel cells way way down before they become useful for cars. However, for cars, methanol distribution may not be a big problem - some researchers are working on gasoline-driven fuel cells. Not as clean as methanol (which exhausts CO_2 and H_2O), but cleaner than combustion, and the distribution infrastructure is already in place. There's still a price/performance problem, because gasoline-powered fuel cells effectively have a full chemistry lab built in, with three or four stages to go through before the actual power production. They also operate at much higher temperatures.

Direct Methanol Fuel Cells are nifty because they're solid-state. A catalyst (platinum, I think) drives the methanol/oxygen -> power/water/carbon dioxide reaction. They do have problems with supporting rapid changes in electrical draw, however. Typically this is handled by putting them in series with a capacitor. The capacitor can soak up rapid increases in demand, while the cell itself adjusts.

Earlier stories on Fuel Cells

[Alien54]

Seriously though, how do you recharge a fuel cell?

There were these links:

• Consumer Hydrogen Fuel Cells by michael with 518 comments on 05:14 PM -- Friday September 28 2001
• Motorola Makes Gasoline Powered Cell Phones by CmdrTaco with 242 comments on 10:19 AM -- Wednesday October 03 2001
• The (Possible) Future of Alternative Energy by michael with 450 comments on 10:56 PM -- Tuesday November 06 2001
• Fuel Cells For (Military) Portable Computing by timothy with 141 comments on 10:56 PM -- Saturday April 14 2001
• Portable Fuel Cell Technology by Hemos with 286 comments on 06:52 PM -- Wednesday January 19 2000

Looks like you might just have to fuel it up (nb the motorola story). Just don't be a heavy smoker. [smile]

Japanese Companies have all the fun

[n-baxley]

Isn't it interesting how the Japanese have an apprantly high tolerance for companies expanding into quite a few horizontal areas. Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of cool things that come from Japanese companies that are better known for more common things like cars (Honda's robot, Mitsubishi creating OS's for example) or the Matsushita/Panasonic company which makes all kinds off stuff. Now we have computer company, mostly, making FuelCell batteries.

Why don't we see these types of things from American companies? Is it a lack of R&D? Legal restrictions on how far they can spread horizontally? Or just a lack of interest? Where are the cool ideas from American companies? And don't give me iPod.

Just a Technical Note...

[virg_mattes]

Actually, the phenomenon you're describing is related not to the battery's charge containing capacity so much as its charge delivery capacity. This same thing happens to car batteries left on cold concrete floors. The charge doesn't disappear from the battery (well, a tiny bit does), but as the battery cools its ability to deliver the charge decreases. You'll find that if you chill a fully-charged battery, it'll stop working. But rather then recharging it, if you heat it back up it'll go back to working normally.

Of course, fuel cells do work at virtually any temperature that won't damage the device it's powering, so, as you stated, this wouldn't be an issue.

Virg

Cost? Producible?

[markmoss]

AFAIK, no good way of producing the carbon nanotubes (buckytubes) for these cells has yet been discovered. They zap a lot of carbon to convert just a few percent to nanotubes, then try to sort the few right-sized tubes out of the mess. So if it can be produced at all, it's going to be very expensive.