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Toshiba To Show Laptop Fuel Cells at CeBit
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?"
If you want a fuel cell to be practically usable, you should make it run on 40% Ethanol, 60% water. That way, there is a commonly available fuel (Vodka) which can be easily purchased most everywhere in the US (outside Mormonstan at least).
If you can make the fuel cell deal with more impurities, you could also use Whiskey or Tequila or similar distilled spirits.
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It'd be nice if the component makers would establish an "open laptop" form factor. We've alreadt got mini-ITX. We just need a chassis/monitor and DC power specification.
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Doc
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
My question is, how long will the battery hold up? I don't mean a single charge, I mean how long will the battery be usuable. Also, it states at the end of the article it will take 2-3 years to get to market. It's amazing that the poster of this story can't even read the article
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Squirrel
Is the best site for information about Fuel Cells
"Runs for 5 hours" under what circumstances and configuration? I'll be downright impressed if they can get five hours out of a desktop PIV running full-blast, and running those drives full-time and the 802.11 won't help. I'd be impressed if the 'smart' battery/fuel cell realy was. My "10% low battery alarm" means anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes on a 2:30 or so charge life.
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
Let's see. Now I can have a batter with a moderately longer runtime, but refilling it is much more difficult than simply plugging it in. Who's going to go for that? OK, it's cool. OK, it's environmentally friendly, but is that enough to overcome the convenience factor?
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!
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
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.
Coding under the influence.
Honest officer I was just fueling my laptop.
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..actually, one can of methanol and one of beer wouldn't be bad. As long as you remember which tube is which.
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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.
As others have pointed out, 5 hours on a laptop is *nothing* The batteries on my iBook do that just fine. Sure it takes me a couple of hours to fully recharge, but that's what a second battery is for, should I need one. Also, I don't have to refill, nor throw away spent fuel cells. It sounds like manually refueling would be a pain in the arse [for a laptop]. Vehicles using fuel cells sound much more interesting
What would be interesting would be a fuel cell laptop that got maybe 24 hours on a "charge".
This just seems like gadgetry for its own sake
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http://www.maxwell.com/ultracapacitors/ According to the above page, ultracapacitors "deliver up to 10 times the power, last up to 10 times as long, operate more reliably in high- and low-temperature conditions, require far less maintenance and reduce environmental issues associated with battery disposal" compared to batteries. I recently read about a hybrid automobile that will be using ultracaps (don't remember who). It seems like these could be implemented in laptops and cell phones.
Computer manufactures should focus on lower power solutions instead of building better batteries (or combine the two). My 17" Powerbook I ordered is rated at 4.5 hrs already with a standard battery. In general the pc world seems that the solution is always to throw more power at the problem instead of trying to come up with a more elegant method of dealing with it. (This isn't a rip on PC's I use both Macs and Pcs daily, just that there's more than 1 solution to most problems)
The "safety card" for lithium.
It's doesn't seem to me that methanol in a sealed cell is any more dangerous than the lithium you have in your current laptop battery, or for that matter than the ethanol in the spirits sold as "Duty Free" on international flights.
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So, what makes carrying a small AA battery-sized container of methanol any different than carrying a butane lighter onto an airplane? I don't see one. Not to mention all the other flammable products carried in small quantities on airplanes in cosmetics and toiletries.
As for the waste/disposal issue, the reason fuel cells are considered advantageous is that both production and disposal is cleaner, not containing toxic chemical compounds. The cartridges could easily be recycled into new cartridges...maybe even someday like inkjet printer cartridges.
As for the runtime on a single charge, that is certain to improve over time. The point is that they get new technology in the marketplace.
BTW, before anyone questions "why don't I use a go-ped like engine" - noise is the main reason, laws are another (as in legal grey area).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon