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Toshiba To Show Laptop Fuel Cells at CeBit

Posted by timothy on from the yes-please dept.

war3rd writes "According to The Register, Toshiba has finally been able to build a fuel cell for laptops that they will unveil at CeBit next week. The fuel cells are expected to last approximately 5 hours and are compatible with existing lithium-ion batteries. Form factor remains the only issue. The trick is that they use the water by-product from the cell to dilute the methanol source as it enters the reformer, and are therefore able to store higher concentrations of methanol in the cell. My only concern is how quickly can they get this to market?"

6 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. www.h2fc.com by MjDascombe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is the best site for information about Fuel Cells

  2. fuel cells run hot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Even with a good catalyst like a fuel cell has, the reaction that takes place has a temperature of several hundred degrees Centigrade.

    Sounds good for a little hot action on your laptop!

  3. Mmmmm Methanol..... by smoondog · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is the methanol safety card. I don't see these on airplanes anytime soon. Anyway, remember those old photocopies from the 70's/early 80's that made pages with blue text? They always smelled a bit and came out a little wet. Yup, methonal was the fluid used in them....

    -Sean

  4. If I recall correctly... by edashofy · · Score: 5, Informative
    The DOT has already approved Methanol in small quantities for uses such as powering fuel-cell powered laptops, see here.

    You "recharge" by popping in a new cartridge of methanol, which should be cheap ($3-5 initial starting price, probably down to $0.30 eventually. You don't actually have to plug the laptop in for a few hours to recharge it either, so on that long airline flight you can run the laptop indefinitely with enough little cartridges. I saw a pic of a prototype cartridge once somewhere, it looked about the size of a AA battery.

  5. Re:Well, there goes the neighborhood by Sitnaltax · · Score: 5, Informative

    Methanol on an airplane is hardly anything to worry about. It's no more dangerous than ethanol, which of course the airline will happily let you drink as much of as you want as long as you keep paying. It burns, but so does ethanol and paper.

    Explosion? Nah. It would be a very difficult task to get so much methanol vapor that an explosion would be much more than alarming pop--the same pop you could get by inflating a barf bag with your breath, twisting off the opening, and POPping it with your fist.

  6. Re:one for me one for you... by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 4, Informative

    1) you misread this - it's methanol, not menthol.

    2) methanol is a poison. Low levels of methanol will permanently blind you. At higher levels, you'd be dead. "Denatured" alcohol is ethanol ("normal" drinkable, get drunk on alcohol) with very low levels of methanol. It's used in industrial processes. There's not enough methanol to screw up most reactions that require ethanol, but enough methanol to make it poisonous to drink so people wont use it as a way of avoiding government taxation.