Alcohol - laptop fuel of the future

 

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Posted on 10 Sep 2001 at 16:57

Alcohol could provide the key to greatly extending the battery life for portable computers if research conducted by Sony and NEC lives up to its promise.

The two Japanese IT giants are both working on methanol-based fuel cells which promise ten times the fuel to weight ratio of the best lithium-ion batteries found in PC portables.

NEC held out the prospect of laptop computers working for weeks in between recharging rather than the several hours, which the best systems offer today. Both Sony and NEC are developing improved versions of the fuel cell battery that exists today. By using fullerenes, a recently discovered form of Carbon, to create a dense mesh framework dotted with a catalyst, a more efficient fuel cell battery can be constructed.

This new approach promises to overcome problems with fuel cells, such as the need for a high temperature to function efficiently.

Unlike today's toxic batteries, methanol fuel cells are ecologically friendly: the methanol breaks down into water and carbon dioxide as it produces electricity. Methanol is cheap and easy to produce.

However, methanol-based batteries may take a bit of getting used to. For a start when they run down you can't simply recharge them. Instead you have to inject them with fresh supplies of methanol to charge them up.

It is not clear how readily computer owners will take to carrying around devices like cigarette lighter refillers to top up their portable's batteries.

Author: Paul Nesbitt