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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?
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.
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?
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.
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
"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.
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!
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