Powerless filtration system increases fuel cell efficiency

While we've been seeing methanol fuel cells pop up in all kinds of concept devices for a while now, there have been precious few actual shipping products that get their juice on with a fuel cell. That might be slowly changing, as a research team at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan has come up with a novel filtration system that increases the efficiency of methanol cells to potentially usable levels. The system, which is 10 times more efficient than conventional waste pumps, features a series of 100 50-micron holes that allow waste CO2 to escape out of the cell, while excess water is pulled off by a hydrophobic Teflon ramp (boy do we love those hydrophobic Teflon ramps!) that drives H20 molecules away from the methanol and into a collector. Since this method doesn't require any power to work, it's well-suited to cell phones and laptops, as the cells can be made smaller and quieter. While this doesn't mean we'll be seeing fuel cell Zunes anytime soon, you can bet those guys in Texas with the booze-powered robots just crossed a big X off their dev charts.

(Photo is of an unrelated Toshiba fuel cell concept.)

[Via DailyTech]

[Carmelo Lisciotto @ Apr 28th 2007 8:40AM]

I bet they did...

Carmelo Lisciotto

[[e-mail] @ Apr 28th 2007 9:10AM]

They're working on something like this at UCONN (except a little better). It should be ready for retail use in about 2-3 years.

[Pedro @ Apr 28th 2007 9:46AM]

Booze-powered robots, you say?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bender_%28Futurama%29

[Matt Leyden @ Apr 28th 2007 10:42AM]

Teflon is not hydrophilic, It's one of the most hydroPHOBIC materials on the planet! Yay fluorine.

[Mike @ Apr 28th 2007 1:58PM]

How about scientists STOP PULLING THIS B.S. and just start making more efficient solar cells and super-capacity batteries? Do you honestly think anyone is going to be pouring methanol into their laptops? Sure you don't have to plug it in, BUT YOU HAVE TO CARRY AROUND A F*CK!NG FLAMMABLE LIQUID!

I'd rather have a solar panel roofed car that charged a super battery I could use even while the car was off for all sorts of things....or maybe one of those solar backpacks that has a battery for storage and was so efficient I could run my laptop off it, charge my iPod and cell, nuke a Hot Pocket, etc.

Hell, how about a solar cell covered device (laptop, iPod) that charges itself? Tell me that doesn't make more sense than a methanol-filled accident waiting to happen?

Let's get real and stop inventing things because we can and start inventing things because we should...

[tekdroid @ Apr 28th 2007 3:46PM]

dunno about the practicality of outfitting an increasingly small audio device with solar cells (unless of course really efficient cells come out), but I would like to see easily replaceable batteries a la mobile phones. The spare can be charged any way you like it. Solar, mains, USB, whatever. Embedded batteries are silly.

[Larryi5 @ Apr 28th 2007 3:52PM]

thats fucking retarded, a water powered one would pwn but this is teh gay

[Sushi @ Apr 29th 2007 4:41AM]

is it edible?

[Motorola 3G Victim @ Apr 29th 2007 6:58AM]

Anyone else see this and think "Cool! Alcohol powered Wiimote!"

[Ken @ May 1st 2007 3:41PM]

Sweet! So all's I have to do now is handle methanol for my cell phone? Cool.

Too bad handling methanol can make you go blind.