Fuel Cell Store Blog

I have no idea why this story is only on an Iranian television news website - it seems that an announcement by a major Japanese electronics maker that it will soon offer a hydrogen fuel-cell power supply for small electronics such as cell phones would be a bigger deal than that.

But here it is:

Samsung has announced the actual development of a micro fuel cell and hydrogen generator, which can charge cell phones for 10 hours. The micro fuel cell and hydrogen generator are capable of powering small electronics such as cell-phones for 10 hours on nothing but good old water. Oh Yong-soo, Samsung’s VP at the research center, explains: “When the handset is turned on, metal and water in the phone react to produce hydrogen gas.”

“The gas is then supplied to the fuel cell where it reacts with oxygen in the air to generate power,” he added. The generator has already been developed. By the time problems are sorted out and the system is improved, the company hopes to launch the mobile phone powered by water some time in 2010.

Can a water-powered laptop be far behind? Will we all one day be longing for a MacbookWater the way we now desire a MacbookAir?

Turns out, the answer could be “yes.”

PolyFuel, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that describes itself as “the world leader in engineered membranes for fuel cells,” recently announced that it is on track to complete a “reference design” for fuel cells that will accelerate the time to market for fuel cells for laptops.

“We expect to have achieved the reference design and a prototype by the end of the year”, Jim Balcom, CEO of Polyfuel, told Electronics Weekly. “We think it will then take about twelve months to go from prototype and reference design to complete the technology transfer to our customers, and we expect it will take our customers another twelve months to get manufacturing up and running.”

The goal: fuel-cell powered laptops that will run all day.  Electronics Weekly reports that PolyFuel’s customers include NEC, Toshiba, Sony, Sanyo, Hitachi, Samsung, Fujitsu, Sharp, Panasonic and the Chinese battery company BYD.

Polyfuel is a membrane supplier and has no immediate intention of becoming a fuel cell manufacturer, Electronics Weekly reports.  It has accomplished most of its goals, including developing a conceptual design for a complete fuel cell system that can outperform Lithium-ion batteries; engineering a membrane that has a high level of water permeability but a low level of methanol diffusivity - which are usually mutually-exclusive attributes; design a membrane electrode assembly that can recycle much of the water created in the fuel cell back to and through the newly engineered membrane; and build a prototype fuel cell.

All that’s left: incorporate its technology into a functioning notebook PC power module, and demonstrate it powering a commercially-available notebook computer. PolyFuels expects to achieve that this year.

Will PolyFuels get into the business of making fuel cells? No. “We prefer the Intel or Goretex business model,” Balcom told Electronics Weekly. “We think if you have a unique, differentiated technology, that is well protected by patents, that is a more profitable way to go.”

Both Intel and Goretex are more profitable than their customers, the story notes.

PolyFuel was spun out of SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute) in 1999, after 14 years of applied membrane research. The company is publicly listed on London’s AIM stock exchange.