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Toshiba Develops World's Smallest Fuel Cells

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the anti-freeze-power dept.

An anonymous reader writes "When you think of Toshiba, you might think of notebooks, but fuel cells? Never. Well, at least not until up to now. Toshiba claims to have made the world's smallest fuel cell to date. The direct methanol fuel cell can fit inside of the smallest of gadgets, ranging from MP3 Players to portal DVD Players. Most fuel cells require a pump that can mix the methanol and water, and a fan to help cool the pump. This makes installing fuel cells in smaller items out of the question. However, Toshiba's new fuel cell does not require a fan or a pump to operate, which means it's much smaller in size, and can be installed in almost any small device."

9 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. More effecient? by Peterl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One would think that the lack of a pump and fan would improve the effeciency, as well.

    1. Re:More effecient? by djtripp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And less moving parts, means less heat, less burned legs, and less chance of the cell exploding on your lap.

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      "This is you left and that's your left. This is your right and that's your right. You're gonna die!
  2. What About Refills? by artlu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the items are so small then how much energy can they realistically generate? Sure, I may get an extra five hours of my iPod, but if I have to go though the trouble of refilling the damn thing instead of just plugging it in, then I don't see the point.

    I like portable fuel cells for laptop use because you can get about 18 hours out of one cell, which is great for flights to India, but when else do you really need that much battery life?

    GroupShares Inc. - An Interactive Stock Market Community

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  3. Re:A loud bang followed by death? by JesseL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What, you think normal chemical batteries are safe? Between the highly caustic acids or alkalines, the heavy metals, lack of short circuit detection, propensity for exploding or shooting flames when overcharged, ordianary batteries are death machines if that's your way of thinking.

    I don't worry about it much.

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    "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
  4. Re:Not smallest by j1m+5n0w · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Motorola designed this sort of thing in 2000, and it's smaller.

    Interesting. Any guesses how they compare in terms of power output and efficiency?

    -jim

  5. Toshiba is a really big company . . . by StateOfTheUnion · · Score: 4, Insightful
    When you think of Toshiba, you might think of notebooks, but fuel cells? Never.

    When I think of Toshiba, I think of plastics, bulk chemicals, PLC's, motors, instrumentation, batteries, X-ray machines, and I'm not sure that they still do this, but they used to even be into heavy machinery . . . as well as computers, semiconductors and consumer electronics. Are fuel cells really a stretch?

    Does the author of the topic really think that /. readers are that naive?

  6. Mitochondria by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Toshiba Develops World's Smallest Fuel Cells"

    Actually no. Your cells have the world's smallest fuel cell. And they were first.

  7. Re:Vaporware - cell me back when they exist by servognome · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Private spaceflight was vaporware also until this last week. It was interesting to read articles on how the projects have evolved until we got to this point.
    I don't mind having 1% of all /. stories dealing with the evolution of near future technology.

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  8. FUD? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every time a fuelcell announcement is posted to Slashdot (and elsewhere), there are immediately panicked replies about fires and explosions. Of course prudence requires caution with any new, unprecedented technology. But have you ever noticed an *actual* fire or explosion problem with *any* fuelcell, at least in the last 5 years?

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