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BBC Tests Pre-Commercial Toshiba Fuel Cell Laptop
nbannerman writes "Fuel cells have been talked about a lot recently, but Toshiba have finally demonstrated a working model. The BBC News website provides some interesting background on fuel cells, but does carrying a warning for the future; 'Toshiba's phase one fuel cell shows how near, but also how far, the version is from being a commercial reality.'"
Fuel cells electrochemically convert fuel into electricity, without bothering with the awkward combustion process that dooms regular engines to inefficiency. The fuel that most currently workable fuel cells run on is hydrogen, which is a bit of a pain to store and transport. A device called a "reformer" can be used to convert methanol and water (much easier to store) into carbon dioxide and hydrogen, but reformer-based fuel cells aren't very efficient, and small models for portable electronic devices are less efficient still. "Direct methanol" fuel cells (DMFCs), on the other hand, run from un-reformed methanol. DMFCs are the things most likely to end up in your laptop or mobile phone. Learn more about fuel cells.
Meh.
This is really great. Because it runs on methanol, it's going to be fairly affordable (at least for short trips to places without any electrical power and potentially very easy to refill - Methanol is also sold as "Wood Alcohol" at your local hardware store. The only real question is the concentration. Most DMFCs (Direct Methanol Fuel Cells) need the methanol to be watered down. The best that I've seen are 99.5% (it had to use a means of recycling the water produced, as the methanol feed can't be more than 70% for electrochemical reasons otherwise) and 20-30%, however in research one generally is trying for 10% at best (I've done 3 work terms of research in fuel cell technologies - as a chemist). Usually at such high concentrations the methanol starts to seep across the polymer membrane, and cutting the voltage. It's one of the big problems with DMFCs, as having to dilute the methanol means that the reservoir gets bigger and more inconvenient. So they might not be too keen to let people mix their own...
Toshiba's fuel cell news is a little old, still, it's great that they're finally getting it out and available for the public. I'm surprised though that they're using one with so many moving parts - I would think that a microfluidics approach would work too. But personally I'd love to take one apart to see how they have their membrane electrode assembly with its proton exchange membrane
The question is going to be whether, like some inkjet printers, others will be able to make cheaper versions of the refilling cartriges. After all, they're just holding methanol and water - not very dangerous, or explosive, and the flammability is fairly low - but drink it and you might go blind. Their expressed concern in the article is smoking and fuming when overheating, but unless it's 100% methanol, or the cell had a very high power output (with lots of heat being generated), I couldn't see it being a problem. Even in the lab I've never seen methanol smoke - it just boils or evaporates very quickly.
One question to those who know more about computers than me: how much power does an average laptop use? I'm curious to work out what kind of efficiency they're getting with their cells.