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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.
...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
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?
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."
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.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
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
It should makes you more than a little uncomfortable to know that many types of batteries have highly combustible and/or toxic and/or corrosive materials in them. Try opening a lithium-ion battery and putting the contents in a glass of water to see what happens... No, I just remembered, this is Slashdot so maybe someone will try this. Do NOT open any batteries, ever. The contents in most of them is more dangerous than methanol.
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*
I assume these things are perfectly safe to use?
Perfectly safe? Sorry bubble boy, but even a padded chamber isn't perfectly safe.
These are reasonably safe, though. For any oxygen combustable fuel to flame you need the fuel in a gaseous or vaporized form within a sufficiently (but not too high) oxygen rich environment.
The small amount of fuel that's in this device would have to turn to gas and flame in the air. You wouldn't be able to fit enough air inside the canister and enable the methanol to turn to gas to cause an explosion. However the space is small enough that it isn't feasable until the canister is empty (only vapor remains). Even then oxygen isn't allowed in the canister. Even then they have overpressure vents which would, at most, cause this device to "vent with flame," as most manufacturers claim LI-ION device may due in the worst cases.
So - reasonably safe yes, perfectly safe, no. Safe enough to prevent multi-mullion dollar liability suits? You bet.
It's all about the bottom line.... Heh, heh, heh.
-Adam
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.
Why would it be pressurized? methanol exists as a liquid at standard temperature & pressure.
It would be like refilling a zippo, or a lawnmower, or a motorbike.. not like refilling propane or a butane lighter or anything like that.
"Toshiba Develops World's Smallest Fuel Cells"
Actually no. Your cells have the world's smallest fuel cell. And they were first.
It's already 8.5 grams for 100 mw and lasts 20 hours? 235Wh/kg - that's already better than some of the best batteries out there (say, Zinc-air, at 200). I'm impressed. Of course, the power density (11.7 W/kg) leaves something to be desired... (even your weakest chemical batteries will give you at least 80 W/kg (say, Zinc bromide)). Here's to them getting better. :)
;)
Only 2cc (ml) of methanol in that? That means that only 1.58 grams of it are the methanol. All I can say is, "wow". If you were to double the mass of this fuel cell by adding only a fuel tank (assuming the weight of the tank is negligable), you should be able to get 139 hours (1.635 kWh/kg) out of it (!). I could live with that
I just invaded Grammar Czechoslovakia and duped Grammar Neville Chamberlain; now it's on to Grammar Poland.
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.
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
"Toshiba claims to of made the worlds smallest fuel cell to date."
Does that make anyone else wince in pain?
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!
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
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.
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