The World's Smallest Fuel Cell for Mobile Phones

Friday, April 19, 2024

Home

News

Reviews

Articles

Guides

Download

Expert Area

Forum

Site Info

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The World's Smallest Fuel Cell for Mobile Phones

You are sending an email that contains the article
and a private message for your recipient(s).

Your Name:

Your e-mail:

* Required!

Recipient (e-mail):

Subject:

Introductory Message:

HTML/Text
(Photo: Yes/No)

(At the moment, only Text is allowed...)

Message Text:

Japanese NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and Aquafairy Co. have jointly developed what they call the world's smallest polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) for use in mobile phones.

The operation test conducted on this fuel cell successfully proven its effectiveness as a recharger for FOMA handsets. The commercialization is expected within one to two years.

The prototype fuel cell uses hydrogen as the fuel. Although no details were unveiled, hydrogen is reportedly generated by adding drops of water to the metal hydrogen generator. The metal hydrogen generator and the power generation cell were developed by Aquafairy. Among the metallic materials, aluminum (Al) and magnesium (Mg) are known to generate hydrogen through reaction with water.

The recharger measures 24 x 24 x 70 mm and weighs 45 g. The fuel cartridge contains water and the hydrogen generator. The total volume of water and the hydrogen generator reaches 10 ml. The output power and the electrical capacity are 2 W and 10 Wh, respectively. According to their report, the latest PEFC is one-fourth the volume and twice as powerful as the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) that was previously co-developed by NTT DoCoMo and Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd.