Toshiba To Show Laptop Fuel Cells at CeBit 293
war3rd writes "According to The Register, Toshiba has finally been able to build a fuel cell for laptops that they will unveil at CeBit next week. The fuel cells are expected to last approximately 5 hours and are compatible with existing lithium-ion batteries. Form factor remains the only issue. The trick is that they use the water by-product from the cell to dilute the methanol source as it enters the reformer, and are therefore able to store higher concentrations of methanol in the cell. My only concern is how quickly can they get this to market?"
Hehehehe ... (Score:2, Funny)
hehehehe that makes me smile
SHOULD be ethanol (Score:5, Funny)
If you can make the fuel cell deal with more impurities, you could also use Whiskey or Tequila or similar distilled spirits.
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:4, Funny)
"... And one fur the doktuuur
On second thought, a laptop battery would be much more covert than a flask, for sneaking liquor into a club.
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:5, Funny)
New LAW the CUI (Score:5, Funny)
Honest officer I was just fueling my laptop.
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:3, Funny)
That's still easier to get than an Indiana driver's license.
Oh, and obviously denatured as well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh, and obviously denatured as well (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh, and obviously denatured as well (Score:2)
Bah!
Won't a Mr. Fusion run that just fine?
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:2, Funny)
But think of this line: Well, officer, off course I have a drink with me, because I use it for my computer!
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:2)
Hey, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Germany with that.
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:2)
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:5, Funny)
I guess this is what they mean when they say alcohol is a Gateway drug...
Re:SHOULD be ethanol (Score:2, Funny)
Dammit, I hate to post this, BUT (Score:2)
Mod me down, but I have to say it...
In Soviet Russia, laptop fuels you.
All we need now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All we need now... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, there goes the neighborhood (Score:3, Interesting)
Doc
Re:Well, there goes the neighborhood (Score:5, Informative)
Explosion? Nah. It would be a very difficult task to get so much methanol vapor that an explosion would be much more than alarming pop--the same pop you could get by inflating a barf bag with your breath, twisting off the opening, and POPping it with your fist.
Re:Well, there goes the neighborhood (Score:4, Funny)
Let's get this back on topic. Realistically, can you really hijack a plane using a laptop fuel cell? "Everybody down, or I'm gonna bust this cell open, let the methanol evaporate for 20 minutes, and then light it, making a 'pop' noise that may be quite loud!". I think not. Of course, that's not to say that overzealous security standards won't let them on anyway, but I don't think they're a realistic threat to airline safety.
Re:Well, there goes the neighborhood (Score:2)
Re:Well, there goes the neighborhood (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well, there goes the neighborhood (Score:2)
Re:seriously (Score:2)
but how long will they last? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:but how long will they last? (Score:5, Funny)
you're new here, aren't you?
Re:but how long will they last? (Score:3, Informative)
Good luck... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good luck... (Score:3, Insightful)
Dumb question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dumb question... (Score:2)
www.h2fc.com (Score:5, Informative)
Better concept (Score:2, Funny)
It'll like be like printing your own money!
Re:Better concept (Score:2, Funny)
Widely Available Phart
Problem with Security ... (Score:3, Funny)
Rent-a-Cop: "Sir, you wouldn't happen to have a explosive gas in that laptop would you?"
Slashdot-Geek: "Uh, no, duh -- it's a fuel cell laptop."
Rent-a-Cop: "Riiiiiigggghhhhhtttttttttttt. Please come with me."
Why do the chemists and chemical engineers keep coming up with such volitile compounds -- why can't we start fueling devices out of garbage like that dude on back to the future?
I could be wrong --
Re:Problem with Security ... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Problem with Security ... (Score:2, Informative)
Ethanol's what's in vodka, methanol is poisonous.
Re:Problem with Security ... (Score:2)
I bet you it voids the warranty though.
First Legitimate Post (Score:4, Interesting)
Usefulness? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Usefulness? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is important for other uses like a prospective Segway using these things. Right now you run out of juice, it's time to get tethered to a wall socket but with this you just fill it up and go further.
Re:Usefulness? (Score:2)
1) You can refill in places where you can't get to traditional power, like an airplane or in your car.
2) You can refill in just a couple of minutes. How long does it take to recharge the batteries on your typical laptop?
Re:Usefulness? (Score:2)
i'd be hesitant to tack on another frequent recurring cost on top of all the other ones (food, cigarettes, etc).
Maybe if there were methanol fountains in public places? that would be cool.
Re:Usefulness? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Usefulness? (Score:2)
Heck, even if it was the same price as gasoline it would still be cheap, considering how much you use. At home, you'll probably buy it by the gallon to fill up your own filling station. Offices will get it delivered just like jugs for the water coolers.
Sure, the early adopters will have some annoyances, but I don't think it'd be too long before you'll see them at airports first... Shopping malls... Office buildings... Street corners... Remember, it's not just laptops, it's also cellphones and other gadgets that use the methanol.
And no, this stuff isn't dangerous or volatile -- certainly no more so than vodka. I imagine the real-world implementation might have the methanol at a 75% (or lower) concentration, or something like that, to limit its flammability. Perhaps at home, you can fill with 100%, but in a public places they'll only serve up 75% to limit the danger. Whatever.
I dunno, people will probably find all kinds of potential problems with my scenario here, but I have very little doubt that some enterprising entrepreneurs will find a way of addressing all the problems and getting it all to work.
fuel cells run hot (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds good for a little hot action on your laptop!
Great... (Score:2, Funny)
Not that great (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not that great (Score:2)
More details? (Score:2)
Re:More details? (Score:4, Funny)
..actually, one can of methanol and one of beer wouldn't be bad. As long as you remember which tube is which.
Re:More details? (Score:2)
powerbook....densities... (Score:2, Interesting)
Mmmmm Methanol..... (Score:5, Informative)
-Sean
Re:Mmmmm Methanol..... (Score:2, Insightful)
At least methanol doesn't ignite when it comes in contact with air.
Lithium (Score:3, Insightful)
It's doesn't seem to me that methanol in a sealed cell is any more dangerous than the lithium you have in your current laptop battery, or for that matter than the ethanol in the spirits sold as "Duty Free" on international flights.
Ditto machines...Mmmmm Methanol..... (Score:2)
We had our ditto machine in a not so well ventilated room, and you could almost get a contact high.
I had a hard time reading your link to the hazard.com site due to my impaired vision and persistant headaches.
Smelly Purple Faxes [halfbakery.com]
Re:Mmmmm Methanol..... (Score:3, Informative)
Even though we had a photocopier, large runs went on the ditto machine, and it was always a mysterious and magical thing to operate. I miss them.
If I recall correctly... (Score:5, Informative)
You "recharge" by popping in a new cartridge of methanol, which should be cheap ($3-5 initial starting price, probably down to $0.30 eventually. You don't actually have to plug the laptop in for a few hours to recharge it either, so on that long airline flight you can run the laptop indefinitely with enough little cartridges. I saw a pic of a prototype cartridge once somewhere, it looked about the size of a AA battery.
Re:If I recall correctly... (Score:2)
Re:If I recall correctly... (Score:2)
Re:If I recall correctly... (Score:2)
Gee, like the butane lighters that I've carried with my on every flight for the past 8 years?
The horror!
Methanol vs. Hydrogen ?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't Hydrogen the desired fuel for a fuel cell? I may be wrong, but I thought that anything besides pure hydrogen would have additional exhausts besides just warm or hot water.
If that is the case, I am not sure why I would opt for this, being that it 'only' gives me five/six hours run time between refills.
That's another point - buying refills for every six hours use is a little bit more cumbersome than just plugging your laptop into the wall and charging the battery, even though the battery will not last as long.
Re:Methanol vs. Hydrogen ?? (Score:2, Informative)
At that point, it is the same thing as a normal fuel cell, just a bit less efficient
HowStuffWorks has a good explanation about it http://science.howstuffworks.com/fuel-cell.htm [howstuffworks.com]
Re:Methanol vs. Hydrogen ?? (Score:3, Insightful)
The main problem is that hydrogen has a very low energy/mass ratio. The only way to get anything even close to a decent range is to have massively compressed hydrogen. This in itself is a hazard. If you see a fuel cell in a car, look at how much cladding they have on that hydrogen tank. You're not going to have that kind of hydrogen tank shielding on something meant to be portable. Methanol is the simplest chemical that is liquid (and therefore relatively dense) at room temperature that they can use in a fuel cell.
The other big problem is hydrogen is very reactive - read explosive. Probably not a good idea to have explosives on your laptop.
Also, its easier for you to refuel methanol than to refuel hydrogen. There's no hydrogen infrastructure. Not much of a methanol one either, but you probably could get methanol if you looked for it.
Re:Methanol vs. Hydrogen ?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Methanol vs. Hydrogen ?? (Score:3, Interesting)
A fuel cell IS a battery. It is a refillable battery. One of the biggest anoyances of rechargable batteries is how long they take to recharge. That is the reason (well, one of them) that electric cars have never become popular. If you run out of juice, they take HOURS to recharge.
With laptops, this problem is not so bad. You can use a laptop while it is recharging, and most places you would want to use a laptop, you will be within range of a plug anyway. Still, there are times when I would like to be able to run unteathered for long periods of time. So whenever the fuel cell gets low, you just add some more methanol and in seconds, you're good to go for another 5 hours.
Um, what's the point? (Score:5, Interesting)
What would be interesting would be a fuel cell laptop that got maybe 24 hours on a "charge".
This just seems like gadgetry for its own sake
.
Re:Um, what's the point? (Score:3, Informative)
Don't tell me that wouldn't be convenient, with a recharge being as simple as swapping methanol cartridges.
Re:Um, what's the point? (Score:4, Informative)
Given the battery life of an iBook, adding a fuel cell to an iBook probably means you could extract 8 or 9 hours.
Don't tell me that wouldn't be convenient, with a recharge being as simple as swapping methanol cartridges.
While ~10 hours is cooler than 5, I don't think it is that much better [yes, technically it is *double*]. For it to make sense, it would need to last 20h at minumum to convince the majority of manufacturers and users to make the switch. It would also be nice to not have to throw away a spent cart.
It's a value proposition. Can companies make more money by switching to the fuel cell technology? My guess is that it isn't at this time. Maybe in a few years when everything gets smaller/faster, but not now.
I still think fuel cells in cars is a better idea than laptops.... of course now we're talking about a completely different fuel.
Re:Um, what's the point? (Score:2)
Do you really think carrying a bunch of "batteries" is really more convenient than just recharging things? I took an underwater camera that used AA batteries on a dive trip and I can tell you that carrying along the 24 batteries I thought I might need was far from "convenient".
The way things are now I can "fill" my laptop just about anywhere for free. I can plug in at an airport or hotel, then get a few hours of use here and there. The thought of paying even $1 a refill pretty much sucks as far as I'm concerned, I never really wanted to have to budget a special amount per month for "laptop charging". I can already see that I'd end up plugging the thing into the wall most of the time to avoid using up the cartridges... so then what is the point of even owning a laptop? That's why i opted for a laptop with good battery life in the first place, so I wouldn't have to plug in all the time.
I do like the sound of the longer battery life in some cases (like on a plane), but I think overall fuel cell batteries have pretty specialized uses and will never be very widespread. Unless you can make them replace normal batteries by using the same form factor and being just as disposable... then they could replace normal batteries if they offered better performance.
Ultracapacitors? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.maxwell.com/ultracapacitors/ [maxwell.com] According to the above page, ultracapacitors "deliver up to 10 times the power, last up to 10 times as long, operate more reliably in high- and low-temperature conditions, require far less maintenance and reduce environmental issues associated with battery disposal" compared to batteries. I recently read about a hybrid automobile that will be using ultracaps (don't remember who). It seems like these could be implemented in laptops and cell phones.
Re:Ultracapacitors? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, "ultracapacitors", too. The company you linked to is trying to market their product as an adjunt to batteries -- to deliver the surge of power needed for certain operations like startup, burst writets, etc. They aren't a replacement for batteries.
The confusion is the phrase "last up to 10 times as long" -- meaning their total lifetime is longer than the batteries, but not while delivering constant power.
Re:Ultracapacitors? (Score:2)
Maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
Battery sized? (Score:2)
Fuel? No, thanks. (Score:2, Interesting)
The InfoWorld Link says to Market in 2004 (Score:3, Informative)
remember that its for using, it (Score:2, Funny)
guess that's why they say "never drink your laptop battery!" ba dum bum!
speaking of drinking laptop batteries as a substitute for alcohol, could I get another? ooh.. where do I come up with this stuff, I'm funnier than ALF
If The Fuel Cell Would Use Ethyl Alcohol (Score:2, Funny)
The Water Byproduct.... (Score:3, Funny)
Tired of the Airline Regulations argument (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the waste/disposal issue, the reason fuel cells are considered advantageous is that both production and disposal is cleaner, not containing toxic chemical compounds. The cartridges could easily be recycled into new cartridges...maybe even someday like inkjet printer cartridges.
As for the runtime on a single charge, that is certain to improve over time. The point is that they get new technology in the marketplace.
Why I can't wait for small fuel cells... (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, before anyone questions "why don't I use a go-ped like engine" - noise is the main reason, laws are another (as in legal grey area).
Re:one for me one for you... (Score:2, Funny)
Go for it! I'll start preparing your Darwin Award nomination now.
(Methanol will kill you dead, AFAIK)
Re:one for me one for you... (Score:2, Informative)
Methanol breaks down via alcohol dehydrogenase into formaldehyde and formate, which of course are pretty toxic. Ethanol breaks down into these things also, but the body does a much better job of breaking ethanol down more completely.
The antidote for methanol ingestion is ethanol ingestion. Really.
For this reason, if you drink something like ethanol denatured with methanol, you will probably not die, but only get very sick.
Also, some commercial drinking alcohols contain small amounts of methanol, which is likely why you get more of a hangover when you drink cheap liquor vs. the good stuff, you actually slightly poisoned yourself.
Re:one for me one for you... (Score:2)
Re:one for me one for you... (Score:2)
Re:one for me one for you... (Score:5, Informative)
2) methanol is a poison. Low levels of methanol will permanently blind you. At higher levels, you'd be dead. "Denatured" alcohol is ethanol ("normal" drinkable, get drunk on alcohol) with very low levels of methanol. It's used in industrial processes. There's not enough methanol to screw up most reactions that require ethanol, but enough methanol to make it poisonous to drink so people wont use it as a way of avoiding government taxation.
Re:one for me one for you... (Score:2)
Re:Performance (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Performance (Score:2)
Re:I haven't posted here in ages (Score:2)
That's what open standards and file formats are all about.
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:5 hours? (Score:2)
Re:Refuelling is easier... (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:5 hours work time (Score:2)