Sony Hybrid Fuel Cell

Fuel-cells look to be a fantastic way of powering a laptop and other portable equipment. By filling them up with something like methanol you can get hours of usage out and then an instant recharge by topping them back up. Sony are working on this technology and have created a prototype hybrid fuel-cell.

The prototype measures 50 x 30mm which makes it fairly small. Inside there is a fuel cell, li-polymer as a secondary batter as well as the control circuit.

We have been aiming to mount (a fuel-cell system) in mobile devices and finally reached a level of commercial design.

The fuel-cell system created by Sony uses methanol and has a pump inside to control the flow of the fuel. With it having a secondary backup battery inside it is able to cope with rising peak powers that mobile devices demand these days and yet, stay in a small enough profile to make it actually usable in a mobile device.

It is estimated that 10ml of methanol would provide enough power for 14 hours of playback on a 1seg mobile phone. That’s not a bad achievement.

Via: GearCrave