Sony creates micro-sized fuel cell system

Finally we can all sleep at night, safe in the knowledge that Sony has created a prototype fuel cell system that fits in the palm of your hand. The combination lithium-polymer battery, backup battery, and control circuit are destined for future mobile devices. According to a company engineer, "We have been aiming to mount (a fuel-cell system) in mobile devices and finally reached a level of commercial design." The tiny power-pack uses methanol as a fuel and controls supply with a hybrid pump, which allows it to regulate the amount of power used based on a system's needs. The company claims that just 10ml of methanol can power a mobile device through 14 hours of 1seg movie watching. Sure, it sounds good on paper, but does this mean soon we'll have to visit tiny, methanol refilling stations manned by a team of mice in jumpsuits? Probably not.

[JAmerican @ May 4th 2008 11:31AM]

Can't wait for fuel cells to take over :)

[Blaine Oliver @ May 4th 2008 3:53PM]

Can it power a DS so it can play doom?

(sorry needed to be said, dont flame me!)

[Curtis Joslin @ May 4th 2008 4:10PM]

No, it didn't need to be said.

Consider your self flamed.

[Technex @ May 5th 2008 5:26AM]

Hehe, we've been using Methonal to power RC models for ages.

I don't know if I should think that this is a great change or not. Wonder if my fuel for my RC cars would get cheaper? :D

[Stem $ell @ May 5th 2008 5:50PM]

Great... more 'meth' labs...

[TheGeektoriousBIG @ May 4th 2008 11:31AM]

Cool! What the MPG?

[Mike10010100 @ May 4th 2008 11:35AM]

Cool! Almost limitless renewable energy powering our mobile gadgets!
(If they use bio-methanol)

[ScooterDe @ May 4th 2008 3:40PM]

bio fuels are not limitless. Quite the opposite. They compete with things like ...er, food, for growing space. They are no replacement for solar and other renewables. Nor are they 'green'. This is junk science.

[Rob @ May 4th 2008 6:19PM]

Solar uses up space, too. But corn-based ethanol is the stupidest idea for a fuel source, ever. Soybean-based biodiesel at least produces significantly more energy than is put into making it, but ideally biofuels should be made using waste material and specialized crops on marginal land unsuitable for growing food.

[Adrian @ May 4th 2008 7:31PM]

So stupid! This is a step backwards as far as I'm concerned, and converting more farmland away from food production, and more towards energy production is not going to help food costs. And how the heck would you charge the stupid thing? You'd have to buy fuel for it, which seems far less convenient than simply plugging it into a wall. I think that hydrogen fuel cells are much more advantageous in this respect: They don't use biofuels, they can simply be plugged in to be recharged, and they're clean energy assuming that the power supplied through your wall outlet is clean energy. No nasty byproducts either like battery acid.

Correct me if I'm wrong, please!

[Jonathan @ May 4th 2008 8:04PM]

Hydrogen fuel cells need to be recharged with... hydrogen. Last time I checked power outlets don't usually supply hydrogen either.

[Mike10010100 @ May 4th 2008 8:23PM]

Woa there.

What I simply meant was that the means to produce such a fuel was made via plants, which are grown. The last time I checked, that's pretty much the definition of a renewable energy source: "any naturally occurring, theoretically inexhaustible source of energy, as biomass, solar, wind, tidal, wave, and hydroelectric power, that is not derived from fossil or nuclear fuel."

I'm talking from a realistic point of view here. Sure you'd be taking some land away from farming, but guess what? You wouldn't be relying on oil companies to serve you your daily amount of tectonic byproduct!

Solar power?????? Seriously? You don't get much more solar than plants! They use the sun's energy to produce sugar, which we can refine into certain fuels (be it bio-diesel or ethanol or methanol; pick the one which has the most theoretical output of course). And while the plants are growing, they absorb the carbon being outputted from the machines that burn their fuel!

And as for hydrogen, while it may be the most abundant element in the universe, almost none of it exists naturally on Earth. Practically all of it is chemically combined with other elements (e.g. H2O). Guess where they get the hydrogen from? Water. Guess how they do it? They use electricity to separate Hydrogen from Oxygen. Due to the chemical makeup of water, you get about twice as much hydrogen as oxygen from the process, but it takes energy to separate them. And guess where that energy comes from? Fossil fuels.

I don't disagree with everything. I do agree that it would be awesome to put these plots on land unsuitable for food production. And use some of the methane from waste sites to help fertilize the plants.

I hope this clears some things up.
I'm sure you won't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong.

[Adrian @ May 4th 2008 11:29PM]

Hydrogen fuel cells can be designed to convert water into hydrogen themselves, thus becoming "recharged" which would, of course, take energy from an outlet to do. You wouldn't need to actually purchase hydrogen to charge your phone or laptop. You might have to top it off with water on occasion, which is handily available at your faucet.

These biofuel solutions, as you state, are at best, carbon-neutral. This is, obviously, better than fossil fuel burning, but its not really feasible at all to clear cut enough forest on the planet to power our needs. You'd be destroying a huge chunk of biodiversity.

With hydrogen fuel cells, presently they would not be carbon neutral, since most places are powered by some form of fossil fuels, however the technology, to me, seems a bit more advanced, less crude, and has the ability, with the development of more clean energy sources, to have no carbon footprint at all.

I watched an interesting article on wind power a week or two ago, and from what I saw, it would be a much more feasible option than biofuels as a fix for the oil addiction.

[mrpoo @ May 5th 2008 1:53PM]

Hydrogen's energy density sucks. Remember, it's a gas while methanol is a liquid. Liquid methanol at ambient conditions has about 3 times the energy density of hydrogen, and that's with hydrogen stored at around 10,000 psi. I would like to see the "charger" for a hydrogen fuel cell phone that electrolyzes water to produce hydrogen, then pressurizes it to 10,000 psi! Crazy.

By the way, cow dung has a higher energy density than hydrogen. If you don't like methanol, I propose you run your phone off of crap as the more feasible alternative to hydrogen.

[JDEdward @ May 4th 2008 11:45AM]

Yes very good Sony.

Just one question though - are they going to be of a similar quality to those laptop batteries you supplied?

[fabian g @ May 4th 2008 12:46PM]

lol,
never has a simple comment like that made me laugh so hard.

thanks

[Jake @ May 4th 2008 1:33PM]

wow, you really are a retard.

[Ace b @ May 4th 2008 5:57PM]

Wow,I honestly was gonna say something just like that.

But seriously,do we have an answer bout that yet?Cause I personally don't want to put one of those in my psp and have my hand,or more importantly,my pants blow up.

[Josh @ May 4th 2008 7:08PM]

Heheheh gotta love all those flammable liquids in your pocket :)

[Chris Anderson @ May 4th 2008 11:46AM]

That'll be so convenient...i can keep the methanol dispenser right next to the bread box...since i'll be making a trip there every 14 hours

[Manny @ May 4th 2008 11:49AM]

Wow, cool. Just waiting for my house to catch on fire

[Jake @ May 4th 2008 1:33PM]

Why got an Xbox360?

[Dave Malone @ May 4th 2008 2:14PM]

Wow Jake, trying hard much?

[Jay Park @ May 5th 2008 3:19AM]

Dave is hurt by your comment jake.

[Ghen @ May 5th 2008 7:15AM]

Jay is commenting on Dave's comment about you Jake.

[Josh L @ May 4th 2008 11:58AM]

Why are companies focusing on making fuel cells smaller instead of on making the fuel extraction process more efficient and economical? Obviously, because they're not trying to make a working fuel cell-driven infrastructure; they're just trying to score points with the easily-impressed green crowd.

Until Hydrogen/Methanol/whatever extraction and processing becomes more economical than oil/coal/natural gas, fuel cells will never take off. Excepting, of course, the inevitable brain-dead government legislation that will try and shove the inefficient infrastructure down our throats before it's ready.

[nick @ May 4th 2008 12:14PM]

@Josh

bcause fuel cells will be able to run out of hydrogen... You can get it just by adding water and plugging a very simple machine at home...

[Josh L @ May 4th 2008 12:42PM]

@nick

The "very simple machine" you're talking about is show, inefficient, and extremely power-consumptive. An electrolysis machine (which is what I assume you are talking about) only has a practical efficiency of maybe 45%.

My point is still valid: we don't need advances in fuel cell technology. Fuel cells have been around for decades and their technology is firmly established and efficient enough for daily use. What we NEED is for someone to develop an electrocatalyst or bioengineered hydrogen-producing microbe or some such in order to facilitate the H2 we will need to support an economy.

[Clinton @ May 4th 2008 1:02PM]

@nick

But doesn't this "conversion" need energy to work? No matter what you're losing energy into this conversion (see laws of thermodynamics)... and that in itself would defeat the purpose.

[dale_nx26 @ May 4th 2008 1:53PM]

I think it's better to have this tech out first and then focus on efficiency since electronics nowadays are outstripping power supply in current batteries.

[GenericWhiteGuy @ May 4th 2008 3:04PM]

Hey everybody. Yes, including you, Sony, working on that smaller fuel cell for devices and you over there-- What's your name? Apple? Ok. Yes, Josh L. has decided that everyone must now become fuel producers. DO NOT work on a way to make cheaper fuel cells for the mass consumer market. DO NOT figure out how to set up assembly lines for fuel cells.

We must all spend 100% of our time figuring out how produce the fuel and then we can all spend several years putting together the assemblies that can utilize that fuel. Everyone must work on exactly the same project because obviously thousands of companies cannot be allowed to concentrate on their own individual expertise. We can only concentrate on one thing at a time. You-- Stop working on that cure for cancer. We're working on fuel extraction today.

[Josh L @ May 4th 2008 3:27PM]

@ GenericWhiteGuy:

Point taken. However, I still have to wonder at companies who are developing better fuel cells when there is nothing to put in them yet. They are banking, I suppose, on somebody, somewhere, at some point in the foreseeable future perfecting a scalable, economic fuel generation solution.

Or, as I said before, they're just spending this money as a roundabout marketing strategy to make themselves appear "green" and "eco-friendly" and "forward-thinking" to people who are easily swayed by feel-good buzzwords.

[GenericWhiteGuy @ May 4th 2008 4:19PM]

I'm sure there is some marketing strategy behind this to appear more "green", but battery capacity is a big issue for all their portable products. This device uses extrememly small amounts of fuel to produce what would take several charge cycles of power output.

Sure, you won't be powering a car with this and it doesn't solve any of the numerous environmental or political issues involved with energy production. But, it does solve an issue of making portable devices more useful. It will cost more to buy a few milliliters of ethanol, but the purpose of this is to create a longer-lasting power source. Looking at all the liquor stores around here, I don't think there is a shortage of ethanol production for this small scale.

There's no mention in the linked article about "green energy" or "infrastructure changes". This is about a device that uses a fuel cell to power a battery that can then be integrated into existing portable electronics. I'd be very happy to give up vodka to power my laptop for 8 hours at a time.

[Rob @ May 4th 2008 6:38PM]

Nonsense, fuel cells are great for this purpose: energy-dense and easily refilled. The cost of the fuel would be trivial if the price of a bottle of rubbing alcohol is any indication. Of course, it would be a bigger deal for a car, which uses much more energy.

[w00t @ May 4th 2008 11:58AM]

Hrmm.... I'd much rather squirt in a bit more juice than find an outlet and tether myself to it for 2 hours!

Just so long as said juice is cheap :)

[Steve Jones @ May 4th 2008 2:07PM]

Dude, Sony don't do anything cheap.

[w00t @ May 4th 2008 2:16PM]

I'm well aware of that, and that's why I wouldn't buy the sony premium methanol when regular plain old methanol is just as good...

Like most things you can get a cheap 3rd party alternative instead.

A quick google found me a 500ml bottle for £4, less in bulk!

Try finding chemical batteries that provide 50 charges for under a fiver, that's sounding like a pretty darn good deal!

[Moo2 @ May 4th 2008 2:26PM]

i love squirting juice

[Chirag @ May 4th 2008 12:16PM]

and in other news... food prices keep rising, because of man insatiable need for fuel...

This is a bad solution. Go solar or nuclear. otherwise, we are facing one crisis or the other.

[A.C.E.R. @ May 5th 2008 1:49AM]

I'd rather have expensive food than cheap glow in the dark food. Nuclear energy is possibly the most dangerous\damaging\expensive method of power generation in existence.

[mrpoo @ May 5th 2008 1:48PM]

"Nuclear energy is possibly the most dangerous\damaging\expensive method of power generation in existence."

No, that would be coal.

[Robotochan @ May 4th 2008 12:16PM]

Batteries or Ultra Capacitors are still the future. We can't keep using crops for creating the fuel for fuel cells as food prices are skyrocketing because of the biofuel industry...

[tom @ May 4th 2008 3:35PM]

seeing the sky-rocketing food prices worries me and for our future generation

[nintendo fanboy hater @ May 4th 2008 12:27PM]

arc reactors are the future. we just need tony to whip us up a stark industries plant

[Richard Lai @ May 4th 2008 12:29PM]

Damn, I was about to say the same (just watched "Iron Man" last night, awesome movie!).

[Ricardo @ May 4th 2008 12:33PM]

Again with this discussion?

You would need around 3 L of fuel a year to power a device like this.

On a car, however, that would be enough to drive for around 30 km, which is less than most people drive everyday.

So basically your car uses in a day what your phone will use in a year.

[Steve Jones @ May 4th 2008 2:10PM]

Yes but my phone isn't a 2 tonne mass of metal requiring kinetic energy to move it. I would be worried if a phone used more than that in a year. Personally this isn't the answer, especially with the combustibility factor.

[macserv @ May 4th 2008 1:33PM]

Which is precisely why we need to get off of fossil fuels entirely right now. Stop burning things, tear down coal plants, and build nuclear plants immediately. Once the energy supply is green, who cares how long it takes to electrolyze water?

25 years of spent nuclear fuel isn't a challenge to handle at all. And then we can switch everything over to solar. Fusion a few decades later.

[macserv @ May 4th 2008 1:34PM]

That was supposed to be a reply to JoshL above. Stupid comment system... When I hit reply, I frakking MEAN reply.

[Josh L @ May 4th 2008 3:35PM]

I imagine the people who are going to end up paying for the expense of electrolyzing it will care. (This would be the consumer. ie. You and me.)

It doesn't matter how "green" the power generating infrastructure is; switching to nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, or anything else isn't going to make the electrolysis process any more efficient. Trying to mass-produce H2 using the current inefficient methods would put tremendous strain on the power grid. Rolling brownouts are still rolling brownouts even if the power you're (not) getting is generated with "green" methods.