New Technology Improves Methanol Fuel Cell Output

It is going to be a while before you see one for a laptop. Toshiba has a design that they have claimed to be releasing by next year, but they have been saying that for the last 7-8 years. I took a fuel cell course at Penn State and one of the projects I did was a DMFC design for a laptop and that was in 2002. The design required a 60mL methanol cartridge for 8 hours of power. The actual fuel cell is a small part of the hole design. You need a heater, water storage, humidifier, at least 3 pumps, and some type of fuel tank. All of that must fit into the package.

Paul, you are right on about "balance of plant' issues.

However, i thought the efficiency improvement was striking as well as the departure from the usual nafion substrate.

milo

I think it is a great improvement. My prof. for that class was heading the fuel cell research at Penn State and he believed that the DMFC was the most likely to gain wide popularity and he said they would be in small portable devices replacing expensive lithium ion batteries. Keep in mind that if the efficiency goes up then a smaller fuel cell will be used and all of the extra components that make a fuel cell system work will get smaller as well.