Toshiba develops fuel cell for notebooks
Semiconductor Business News
(03/04/03 09:54 p.m. EST)
TOKYO - Toshiba Corp. today (March 4, 2003) announced what it calls the world's first prototype of a small form factor direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) for portable PCs.
The fuel cell currently realizes average output of 12 Watts and maximum output of 20 Watts, thereby achieving approximately five hours of operation with a single cartridge of fuel.
Fuel cells are widely seen as a replacement for lithium-ion batteries, but companies working on their development have to overcome the problems of miniaturization and fuel delivery.
Toshiba claims to have achieved this with its DMFC. For the cell itself, Toshiba developed a new material that allows smaller cells, allowing for miniaturization of the cell stacks.
It has also developed a system that allows a higher concentration of methanol to be diluted by the water produced as a by-product of the power generation process.
This technology allows methanol to be stored at a much higher concentration, and achieves a fuel tank less than 1/10 the size of that required for storing the same volume of methanol in a 3 to 6% concentration. The current prototype can operate for approximately five hours on 50cc of high concentration methanol.
