Fuel Cell Hype Is Back
from the this-again? dept
For years, we’ve been hearing all about how wonderful fuel cells were going to be and how they would replace rechargeable batteries in things like mobile phones and laptops. This still doesn’t make total sense. The benefit of fuel cells is that they’ll last much longer than traditional rechargeable batteries. That’s a good thing. However, the replaceable nature of fuel cells is a real downside. As we’ve pointed out before, the reason so many devices have moved to rechargeable batteries is because people don’t like the idea of having to buy and tote around replacements for their devices. Being able to recharge is much more efficient. When it comes to fuel cells, though, the most likely situation will be that you’ll have to buy replaceable fuel cell “cartridges” which most people will probably refer to as batteries — since they’ll basically look and act like batteries. Some companies have realized this and backed off the fuel cell bandwagon, but it looks like the hype is back again with Toshiba talking up a fuel cell-powered MP3 player and a research firm claiming the fuel cell market is about to take off. Yes, there’s a place for fuel cells, but just because they last longer, it’s not clear that everyone will rush out and buy them. Having rechargeables is just much easier to deal with than always having to make sure you have a fresh pack of new batteries fuel cells.
Comments on “Fuel Cell Hype Is Back”
No Subject Given
There’s no need for them to really be throw-away; if they had hydrogen in them, the resulting water could be stored. Hook it up to AC power, and let a reversible fuel cell split the water back in to oxygen and hydrogen. Maybe every once in a while, top it off with water.
Throw-away fuel cells is just a capitalist load of crap.
Re: No Subject Given
1) Fuel cell ‘batteries’ may be designed to be completely self-contained, if so then there’s no need to add or remove any material. The major issue will be the hydrogen leaking out prior to use.
2) AC wont split molecules.
3) See #1, topping it off with water is redundant.
Re: Re: No Subject Given
Electrical current through water will split water.. last time I checked, AC is that 😉
Re: Re: Re: No Subject Given
DC works better. AC jsut makes a big explosive mess. Also, it can’t be plain water because pure water does not conduct electricity; there must be a conductor such as salt or bleach present.
Re: Re: Re:2 No Subject Given
well i doubt people would have distilled water laying around that they would use… so i doubt the non conductive water would be an issue… but thats a good point… anyways what do they add to water to make it conductive for fuel cell purposes?
Re: Re: Re:3 No Subject Given
Uhh… you got it backwards, water is ther by product of fuel cells.
To make water conductive, get it out of your faucet, its conductive, trust me.
Re: Re: AC
All cell phone batteries are charged with DC too. You must use a rectifier/power supply to charge any battery from the wall. Thus a similar charger would be used for the fuel cells if that were how they were intended to be used. The conversion of methanol to hydrogen for fuel cell use can (for now anyway) can be simplified into a much smaller cartridge than a two-way fuel-cell/electrolyzer system. As for refilling, they could operate much like butane cans are used to refill butane lighters, but under much higher pressure (safety would be a concern, and a good mechanism would need to be devised). Remember though that a single cartridge would run your phone for a month, so on trips you wouldn?t need to haul your can around, maybe just another spare cartridge for a very long trip.
Re: Re: No Subject Given
“AC wont split molecules.”
Maybe you haven’t heard of a transformer/rectifier.. AKA a power adapter. They are those niftly little devices (the thing you always lose in the bottom of your box of wires and cables) that pretty much every peice of electronics uses to convert AC into DC.
Re: No Subject Given
sounds right…
Just looking at the pic :rolleyes:
If you look at the picture the person is refueling the “battery” with methanol. That means… “battery” doesn’t get thrown away.
The only downfall to this is it’s explosive… but so are lithium batteries.
Re: Just looking at the pic :rolleyes:
If you look at the picture the person is refueling the “battery” with methanol. That means… “battery” doesn’t get thrown away.
That’s unlikely to be the way the final product is “refueled” as the article suggests. It’s a bit too dangerous for the average user.
At the same time, that could be even worse, because you’d always have to carry around bottles of methanol…
For once I disagree with TechDirt's excellent arti
Having followed the link in the above, I find the fuel cells to be amazing – 35 hours from 3.5ml of fuel? AND I would prefer to just fill ‘er up rather than plug in and leave for 6 hours to charge…
No Subject Given
Sounds like if this goes through we can forget about taking our cell phones on a plane anywhere. Regardless of how stable the fuel cells are, if they are using methanol in them you can count on airports not allowing them through security.
Re: Airports
I agree. If its an explosive chemical, the airports won’t allow it becuase they think your going to try and take down the plane, which I highly doubt you can do with an amount like 3.5ml.
Re: Re: Airports
Yup. http://www.corporatetravelsafety.com/Hazard%20materials.html
Airplanes don’t allow pocket cigarette lighters, so it’s unlikely that they’ll allow methanol refills. 3.5mL of methanol might not sound like much, but that small amount could be used to catch other materials on fire more easily — which isn’t good on aircraft.
Re: Re: Re: Airports
Any battery could in theory be used as an explosive device as there is power generated on planes. Thus it is possible to explode any type of battery.
fuel cells? I'm still waiting for
Mr. Fusion, or at least a good used flux capacitor with a couple of jigawatts left in it.
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