Methanol Fuel-Cell Battery For Your Laptop?

Nick writes: "I ran across this accidentally when I was researching fuel cell cars. They have come out with a little methanol fuel-cell battery they hope will be more powerful than lithium ion batteries, at competitive prices too! (well, in five years maybe) Also check out howstuffworks for a great article on fuel cells in general." Beating Li-Ion batteries by a factor of ten is a very worthy goal.

This was posted before...

[diadem]

A similar article was posted here before, dealing with Methane batteries for cell phones.

sounds like...

[turbine216]

...a previous slashdot story [slashdot.org] involving Motorola's attempt at powering cell phones with similar methane-powered fuel cells.

Carts Re:it remains to be seen...

[StefanJ]

Prototypes were depicted as using sealed, pen-sized cartridges. No filling necessary. I imagine that screwing them into the fuel cell would break a seal allowing a controlled stream of methanol to be fed into the reformer.

I suppose that the manufacturer would initially charge a lot for these, but refill kits would appear shortly.

Stefan

Re:Longer battery life.

[ncc74656]

The Palm's a great example, but even that only lasts 2 weeks tops on 2 AAA batteries.

2 weeks? Are you leaving it on all the time? I usually get at least as many months out of mine. Even when I was scribbling class notes into one, it still got fairly good battery life. It's set to shut off by itself after one minute of inactivity, though I usually shut it off before that kicks in.

Re:it remains to be seen...

[Anonymous Coward]

You were concerned about the cost of methanol
verses the cost of electricity. In fact they
both cost about the same. One gallon of gasoline
in a car engine produces about 100-200 MJ of
energy, or 27-55 KWhr. This costs about $1.30
meaning that a gasoline engine produces usable
energy at a cost of about 2-5 cents per KWHr,
which is roughly what it costs from your
electricity supplier.

Of course Methanol has a lower energy density
than gasoline, however, fuel cells are much
more efficient than gasoline engines.

It is also worth noting that it takes much less
time to recharge a methanol battery (replace
the methanol container) than to recharge a Li-Ion
battery.

Even if you were to refill the battery directly
with methanol, it would far more likely come
in an aerosol form than a pourable liquid. In fact
this is the way liquid cigarette lighters are
refilled, without any spillage problems.

Did some due diligence on this....

[nellardo]

I did some due diligence on this kind of technology for a VC firm out of the Bahamas. They were considering investing in a spin-out from the Jet Propulsion Lab. [nasa.gov] If you check you'll see a dorky researcher holding a prototype [nasa.gov] and if you go here [nasa.gov] you'll see a newer stack. You can also read a bit about it. [nasa.gov]

The one I saw, intended for eventual use in cell phones, was basically what looked like a sandwich of plexiglass and some spongy material. Two wires ran off from the sponge to connect to the contacts for a small fan. You'd take a bottle of methanol, squirt it on the sponge, and the fan would start to spin, slowly at first, and building up in speed as the cell heated up to optimum temperature (which I think was around 50-60 degrees celsius).

Cell phones make a good first application for this kind of technology (as opposed to cars) because the price/performance ratio is high (cell phones are expensive for the amount of power they use) and the performance/weight is relatively low (you don't need a really big stack to drive cell phone). If the fuel-cell cell phone (or even just a widget to replace the battery) costs ten times as much, but lasts ten times as long, is fully "rechargeable" with a one-minute application of methanol (which could come in sealed, disposable plastic tubes, or you could fill it the same way you fill a butane lighter), and has no "memory" problems, then you've got a real winner. People will pay $1000 for a cell phone (they did when the StarTAC first came out).

A car that costs ten times as much doesn't work, because that puts even a cheapie car into six figures. You have to get the price-performance ratio of fuel cells way way down before they become useful for cars. However, for cars, methanol distribution may not be a big problem - some researchers are working on gasoline-driven fuel cells. Not as clean as methanol (which exhausts CO_2 and H_2O), but cleaner than combustion, and the distribution infrastructure is already in place. There's still a price/performance problem, because gasoline-powered fuel cells effectively have a full chemistry lab built in, with three or four stages to go through before the actual power production. They also operate at much higher temperatures.

Direct Methanol Fuel Cells are nifty because they're solid-state. A catalyst (platinum, I think) drives the methanol/oxygen -> power/water/carbon dioxide reaction. They do have problems with supporting rapid changes in electrical draw, however. Typically this is handled by putting them in series with a capacitor. The capacitor can soak up rapid increases in demand, while the cell itself adjusts.

Earlier stories on Fuel Cells

[Alien54]

Seriously though, how do you recharge a fuel cell?

There were these links:

• Consumer Hydrogen Fuel Cells [slashdot.org] by michael with 518 comments on 05:14 PM -- Friday September 28 2001
• Motorola Makes Gasoline Powered Cell Phones [slashdot.org] by CmdrTaco with 242 comments on 10:19 AM -- Wednesday October 03 2001
• The (Possible) Future of Alternative Energy [slashdot.org] by michael with 450 comments on 10:56 PM -- Tuesday November 06 2001
• Fuel Cells For (Military) Portable Computing [slashdot.org] by timothy with 141 comments on 10:56 PM -- Saturday April 14 2001
• Portable Fuel Cell Technology [slashdot.org] by Hemos with 286 comments on 06:52 PM -- Wednesday January 19 2000

Looks like you might just have to fuel it up (nb the motorola story). Just don't be a heavy smoker. [smile]

Spills are stupid to speak about anyways

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone here _ever_ refilled a butane powered product?

Notice how the "spilled" butane simply cools the device and evaporates in seconds.

Jeez, why is this going to be different?

Cost? Producible?

[markmoss]

AFAIK, no good way of producing the carbon nanotubes (buckytubes) for these cells has yet been discovered. They zap a lot of carbon to convert just a few percent to nanotubes, then try to sort the few right-sized tubes out of the mess. So if it can be produced at all, it's going to be very expensive.

Li-Ion is not the one to beat.

[Penguinoflight]

Lithion Ion is not as efficient as the Ni-MH (Nickel Metal Hydride), in fact, Ni-MH lasts about 15% longer. I don't know why Ni-MH didn't catch on, it's in my Travelmate 4000m (486-75mhz). The cost doesn't seem to be a factor, because the battery can still be had new for $40, and I got mine for $20.