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Toshiba Develops World's Smallest Fuel Cells
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."
Motorola designed this sort of thing in 2000, and it's smaller.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Hours of runtime, and portable, which makes it better than a shower massage. Carpe technology...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
One would think that the lack of a pump and fan would improve the effeciency, as well.
Considering the summary here a good 9/10 of whats in the linked Overclockers Club here's some links from some more normal news outlets
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
On the other side, we will now be able to talk on our cell phone anywhere any time. No loger will 'my battery is dead' be an accetable reason for not calling the boss back. Gee, thanks guys.
I stole this sig.
...Is a fule cell that produces 2 things, electricity for our gear and as a byproduct of the energy it makes some form of caffienated beverage.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
More info from . If that link doesn't work (it has a session ID I couldn't remove), try looking at the EE Times front page
One third of the volume of the device is fuel; if you doubled the volume, you'd get 4x the life.
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TOKYO -- Toshiba Corp. has developed a matchbox-sized direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) with no moving parts.
The prototype measures 22 x 56 mm with a thickness of 4.5 mm and includes a 2-cc capacity fuel tank. The fuel cell weighs 8.5 grams, and has an output power of 100 mW. Using a 99.5-percent concentration of methanol, the fuel cell can power low-power consumption devices such as MP3 audio players for about 20 hours, Toshiba said. Toshiba divides its DMFC development into two types, "active" and "passive." The new passive fuel cell aims for higher power -- more than 10 W at 10-20V generated by active systems, which use a pump and fan to feed methanol and oxygen into a cell stack where oxygen reacts with the methanol to produce electricity.
Toshiba unveiled an active prototype to power notePCs last spring, and plans to introduce a product later this year.
The passive model features a simpler structure, making use of the concentration gradient to feed methanol and oxygen to the cell stack. "We eliminated mechanical components such as a fan and fuel pump used in active-type DMFCs. Instead, we devised a way to supply fuel and air uniformly," said Fumio Ueno, a technology executive at Toshiba Display Device & Components Control Center.
Toshiba engineers reduced catalyst particles nanometer size. The electrodes measure 2 x 3 cm, but deliver the same output power as Toshiba's conventional DMFC using electrodes five times larger.
Toshiba plans to introduce the small DMFC with an output power of about 100 mW sometime next year.
Toshiba engineers said the fuel cell can power some portable devices such audio players. "We'll work on improving the output, then the fuel cell can power cellular phones," said Kazunori Fukuma, managing director of Toshiba Display Devices & Components Control Center.
For cellphone applications, Toshiba is targeting an output level of 2W at 4V. "More functions are implemented in a cellular phone, such as TV reception. This will increase the need for fuel cells," Fukuma said.
Initially, it will be difficult to replace current lithium ion batteries with DMFCs, and a hybrid configuration may make the most sense. The fuel cell could charge the lithium ion battery when the phone is idle.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I assume these things are perfectly safe to use?
But I am sure it would only be a small explosion. ;)
since the battery is their weakest link.
Wonder how long it takes when we see iPod or iRiver or other hard-drive based players with cell inside.
DPReview has a pic of it.
b af uel.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0406/04062401toshi
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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artlu.net
Or is that an entendre?
Wonder if you're on an airplane and a despresurization happens, the fuel cell blows and nobody can see the flames (because they're invisible). can you flight safe carring one of these?
How long before I can get one converted over to ethanol, and installed in my stomach to use excess fuel to power my array of personal electronics?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
From the post:
:-)
"ranging from MP3 Players to portal DVD Players"
What's a portal DVD player? Is that like a Stargate?
They do after all emit co2. I wonder if you can smell them?
o mp /co2.html
"Carbon dioxide is a colourless odourless gas"
http://www.ucc.ie/ucc/depts/chem/dolchem/html/c
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
If you want true portable methane power, find a way to harness the awesome effects of my award winning Split Pea Soup! A small hose could be ran from the "back end" of the methane converter to a meriad of electronic devices. My wife can vouch for the consistent power output.
Yeah, I guess I'm funny like that.
Another article reports that the power output is only 100 milliwatts for the 8.5 gm device. This suggests that a 1/2 kg version of the thing would only put out 5.9 watts - not enough to power a laptop. It looks like an interesting powersource for low-power devices, but anything with a backlit display or modern mobile processor is probably not feasible with this tiny unit.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
More can be read here...
News links from google...
Here is another article related to the fuel cell in question, and what they are going to use it for. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080& sid=a5sZn3vGo1js&refer=asia I haven't seen anything on cost yet, anyone heard?
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?
This is great! Now can we finally buy one of these f00king things? Or must we be constantly taunted with these advances only available as prototypes to large multi-national corporations and well financed government labs...
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
Along with yet another article regarding Toshiba's new fuel cell, Fuel Cell Today has some other interesting news items regarding Fuel Cell technology worth reading.
This is great, but is there any word on how much methanol something like this would go through? More importantly, when are Radio Shack and K-Mart going to begin distributing methanol? I'll need to pick some up on my way out of town.
You can't smell CO2, which is why it's so deadly in concentration. CO is a poison - it's not just the lack of oxygen that will kill you.
Of course, pretty soon every laptop will also contain a micro-bonsai tree to cleanse the CO2.
And my micro bonsai will be overclocked.
-Adam
Then don't think about the lithium ion cells in your laptop/cell phone right now, because they have extremely high energy densities(the battery pack in my Powerbook 17" is probably the same volume as a CD jewel case, and yet contains 61 Watt-hours of power), and require careful management by the device to keep from entering thermal runaway mode, where the battery gets hotter and hotter until it explodes- and I do mean -explodes-. Rather violently.
For several years(possibly still) battery companies wouldn't sell Lithium Ion batteries to anyone except certified "solution providers" to assure the batteries had proper charging and monitoring.
Please help metamoderate.
"Toshiba Develops World's Smallest Fuel Cells"
Actually no. Your cells have the world's smallest fuel cell. And they were first.
Ballard stocks have already gone up and down several times. If you invested say 10 years ago you would have made a killing. You've pretty much missed the boat now.
Moo!
Who thinks of tractors when they think of Hitachi? Probably just about no one but they do make them. These Japanese conglomerates are huge and they have their fingers in a whole lot of pies.
Yes, CO is a poison. CO2 is not. CO2 is no deadlier than any other gas we cannot breath, like inert helium.
KFG
From :
o la batt.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0001/00012004motor
A direct methanol fuel cell converts the energy in methanol directly to electricity and operates at normal room temperatures. A catalyst (typically a mixture of platinum and ruthenium) is used to react a dilute mixture of methanol and water to form carbon dioxide, protons, and electrons, which provide the electrical current. The protons are conducted through a proton-conducting organic membrane to another platinum catalyst where the protons combine with oxygen from the ambient air to form pure water. Some of the water is recycled back to mix with the methanol, and the excess water evaporates as water vapor in the air.
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. /. stories dealing with the evolution of near future technology.
I don't mind having 1% of all
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
I wonder will passengers be permitted to board an aircraft with items that are powered by these fuel cells? Heck, the fearful fascists take away cigarette lighters. Why not fuel cells?
Sure the cells themselves are fine, but will you be allowed to take a pressurized canister of combustible gas on the plane??
"Toshiba claims to of made the worlds smallest fuel cell to date."
Does that make anyone else wince in pain?
dpreview has an blurb that is much more comprehensive. And, to spread the hits, you can see the original press release The content of the two links is the same, only the background color and periphery information is different. (dpreview is black; toshiba is white)
Hell, I don't care what the oil companies do: My newest cell phone runs on biodiesel! No more filling up at the cell-phone station for me.
For the curious: don't try it. I used to work for a battery manufacturer. Suffice it to say that if one of the chemical tanks were to rupture, they would have had to evacuate most of that city immediately because of the toxic gas. And that's just one ingredient.
Trust me, it's not worth it, even if you're curious. You might regret it for the rest of your (short?) life!
Here's a link to the press release. It has more details than the link in the main article. http://www.prnewswire.com
Or, even worse, it could develop into a utility, with underground pipes running to your home. Then a whole city could blow up!
Oh wait, we already have natural gas.
Realistically, how much worse would this actually be?
Perhaps, because this fuel cell is so small, you don't need the same safety features that a larger cell would need. The plastic casing might be enough to contain a 'catastrophic failure'.
Kinda like that christmas tree sized nuclear reactor that just doesn't have enough mass to melt down...
I don't read AC A human right
MSDS for Methyl Alcohol
Scale is 0="It's practically water" to 4="It'll kill you if you look at it". Granted the stuff probably won't be pure, but how diluted can you make it before it's no longer a usable fuel?
=Smidge=
I used to invest in Manhattan Technologies (mhtx), which made micro fuel cells that ran off methanol, before they ran out of money and went into hibernation. These things were manufactured using printed circuit technology on plastic sheets, no moving parts, rolled up pretty small. They made prototypes, but never divulged which technical details were keeping them from going production. They've got lots of patents. They'll probably wake up and sue anyone who actually succeeds in manufacturing small fuel cells.
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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make install -not war
They didn't just pick green for fun, green on black provides very good contrast with little eye strain.
Blue's a good background colour too, lots of Dyslexia associated sites recomend it.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Imagine a world where you could recharge your cell phone by finding a coin op fuel dispenser unit (which could be as ubiquitos as pay phones in urban areas)..
:)
Some of my friends like to bemoan how we will never be able to get off of oil dependence but I tell them "necessity is the mother of invention".
Nice to see
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om Shanti
I've never heard of methanol used as rubbing alcohol.
Ethanol and Isopropynol yeah, but not methanol. Is there a particular product that uses it?
=Smidge=
The fuel cell burns methane
In other news, baked bean stocks triple!
Methanol can be produced by a variety of processes from a variety of feedstocks including biomass; e.g. wood chips, saw dust, and agricultural waste products.
Besides, the amount of methanol needed to run a mobile phone for a year would power a typical American SUV gas-guzzler for about 3 seconds. (YMMV :-)
Don't flatter yourself, methanol is extremely toxic. This stuff methabolizes to formaldehide, which basically dissolves your cells (in your body, not in your laptop), starting usually with the nerve cells in the optic nerve. In plain English that means: you go blind from a small dose, and you die from a larger dose. It's easily absorbed through skin, or by breathing the vapor, and diluting it doesn't prevent the absorbtion (though slows it down). You don't want methanol anywhere near you, unless it's hermetically sealed in a cartridge.
Starting a fire should be the last of your worries. For crud's sake, a cigarette lighter is way more dangerous a methanol fuel cartridge would be, 'cause it ahs 100% concentrated fuel in it, and actually burns it as intended use, and you have no second thoughts about dragging it around in your pocket, now do you?
The Bloomberg article offers some insight into the business strategy. The plan here is to make units that require a "fuel cartridge". "Fuel cartridges" contain just methanol and water, but will have markups previously seen only for printer ink. Toshiba expects to make ten times as much on the "fuel cartridges" as they do on the fuel cells.
Look for strategies to prevent "refilling".
Crispin
You're both right. There are natural gas deposits in many areas that don't have any oil. However, there is also quite a bit of methane as a "byproduct" of oil production. Have you ever seen those flames shooting off of the offshore oil rigs? They're not burning oil, that's methane.
When drilling for oil, methane tends to collect in the same areas as the oil. Usually there is a "space" at the top of the oil resevoir, especially after you start drilling, that is filled with the stuff. They don't have the capability to capture & store the stuff because there's just too much of it. But it's also dangerous to just let it leak out around everything. The solution, controlled burn!
I've often thought it would be nice to capture all of that wasted energy. Not necessarily in the form of natural gas, but perhaps as electricity. I wonder if we could just place some gas turbines on the rigs & then run some wires to the shore (depending on where they are obviously). You've gotta think this is a more cost effective solution for the oil company than just burning the stuff off & losing that possible revenue.
Or perhaps producing Hydrogen.....
Fuel cells can, in principle, run on any redox reaction, that is, any reaction based on the transfer of electrons. So the methanol oxidation is fully capable of driving a fuel cell.
The redox pair in this case would be:
anode: CH3OH + H2O => CO2 + 6H+ + 6e-
cathode: 3/2 O2 + 6 H+ + 6e- => 3 H2O
sum: CH3OH + 3/2 O2 => CO2 + 2 H2O
Anode and cathode half cells would be separated by a membrane, the protons travel through this membrane, while the electrons are transferred through the external circuit, generating a usable current.
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