Originally published December 1 2005
Toshiba a frontrunner in methanol fuel cell technology
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFC) were displayed by Toshiba at the recent CEATEC conference, and the company believes the technology could go commercial as early as 2007.
THE idea of using methanol fuel cells as the successor to batteries has been floating around for quite some time, but the folks at Toshiba are thinking big. Or rather, they’re thinking small.
Toshiba’s booth at CEATEC had a little corner with some laptops, audio players and mobile phones. Nothing out of the ordinary, until you realise that they’re all powered by Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFC).
The advantage of all this, of course, is that you’ll never have to wait for a device to charge. Simply top up the fuel cell with methanol, and you’re ready to go again.
And since the only by-product of the chemical reaction is water vapour, it’s also environmentally friendly.
There are currently two types of DMFCs – active and passive ones – both of which rely on a chemical reaction between methanol and oxygen, with the aid of a catalyst.
Active cells require a pump to feed the methanol into the cell while passive ones use a concentration gradient to circulate oxygen and methanol in a fuel cell.
The active fuel cells are larger, but are able to drive high-powered devices such as laptops (which require about 18-watt of power) for up to 10 hours.
The smaller passive fuel cells have no moving parts, but don’t provide as much power – in the region of 0.1- to 0.3-watt. However, that’s enough for a wide variety of small electronic devices.
Right now, Toshiba is conducting tests to validate the use of passive fuel cells in portable music players. The tests have been encouraging so far – a single methanol charge (about 10ml) is enough to power a prototype Toshiba Gigabeat audio player for up to 60 hours.
So, why isn't it out yet?
There are a couple of things that need to be ironed out before DMFCs can be commercially viable.
First of all, there’s the issue of safety. Pure methanol is a highly flammable substance, so Toshiba is ensuring that your brand new MP3 player won’t suddenly turn into a Molotov cocktail.
Apparently, Toshiba’s designs have met the draft safety standards on the International Electrotechnical Commission (www.iec.ch), which are under review.
The other issue involves the purity of the methanol used. Researchers have found that, by using highly concentrated 99.5% pure methanol, they are able to shrink the fuel cartridges into a tenth of the current sizes, resulting in what they call a Micro Direct Methanol Fuel Cell – as used in the prototype audio players.
Unlike the devices with active fuel cell systems, these audio players aren’t any larger than their battery-powered counterparts, which is impressive.
Methanol fuel cells normally use a diluted methanol solution (lower than 30%) which will require a tank far too large for portable devices.
The high-concentration methanol cells (as used in the prototype portable music players) are still a relatively new design and although they seem to work fine, Toshiba’s engineers believe that they can be made even more efficient.
A standard methanol cartridge is currently being developed to suit a large variety of fuel cells and devices – sort of like the AA battery of the future.
Toshiba plans to turn its DMFC technology into commercial products in 2007.
Until then, we’re stuck with battery chargers.
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