Methanol fuel cells for gadgets gain steam

Direct Methanol Fuel Cell has licensed a patent from CalTech to build methanol-based gadget chargers, a week after Toshiba took the wraps off its own portable fuel cell.

The patent will allow Direct Methanol Fuel Cell to design smaller portable charging packages for devices, such as mobile phones, said Viaspace, the parent company of Direct Methanol Fuel Cell. The company said Monday it has a partnership with Samsung and others to commercialize methanol fuel cartridges.

Toshiba introduced a methanol fuel-cell charger for Japan last week.

(Credit: Toshiba)

A direct methanol fuel cell converts the liquid fuel methanol into electricity through a chemical reaction between oxygen and methanol. It's a technology that a number of electronics companies are looking at to extend the life of power-hungry devices, such as laptops and mobile phones.

Last week, Toshiba unveiled the Dynario, an external charging device which is now available in Japan at a cost of about $325. The company has not said if it has plans to introduce the methanol fuel cell in other countries.

The Dynario can store enough energy to charge about two mobile phones and it uses an embedded lithium ion battery to store electricity.

[DougMohney]

OK boys and girls, how many times over the last decade have we been promised methanol fuel cell technology?

[USDecliningDollar]

Interesting, but ...

Looks kinda clunky, and where does one purchase methanol?

[Marcus Westrup]

Methanol can be found in most hardware shops - but I bet these gadgets need a special blend of alcohol and water to function., which will be sold at an inflated price.

I'm still waiting for a portable system beefy enough to go camping with...

[USDecliningDollar]

Thanks for the harware shop info. I do agree that they will likely sell their own special blend at inflated prices.
Also, I am guessing that the TSA will not be allowing cans of methanol in my luggage, so it is doubtful that I will be able to travel with it ... unless I choose to drive. =)

[galeso]

TSA has preapproved small amounts of Methanol, at least enough for a charge or two.

[ArtInvent]

I again wonder why you wouldn't just by a big lithium ion battery and charge your phone multiple times from that. Which you can do already for less money. And don't need to try and find lots and lots of little methanol cartridges.

They still have a long way to go.

[galeso]

Or solar. How about a wind up/crank generator like some radio have.

[Joe Real]

One of the major GREED problems with these types of gadgets is that you will have to buy their specialty methanol cartridge only. Such fuel cartridges would be sold for between $10 to $20 for about 4 oz of methanol, and that would mean $320-$640/gallon of methanol. And we know we can get a gallon of methanol for about $2-4. It would all right for the device to be sold around $300 but please, let us buy our own methanol to fuel it up or refill the cartridges. If the cartridges are sold for about $1 per 4 oz, I would be willing to pay for it, and they would still make a lot of profit from the cartridges alone. For a $1/4 oz cartridge that would be $32/gallon gross profit coming from a bulk purchase price of less than $2/gallon. You can have the cartrdige at less than $0.12 each for cost of production and the refilling operation.

I predict that they will model the selling of this unit just like ink jet printers where you can get the printers on the cheap, but you will be paying through the nose when you buy ink jet cartridges. And it will fail.

[galeso]

I can see it now, hardware store quality methanol gumming the insides of catalyst just like the cheapest ink cartridges sometimes do to printers. Then the reasonably priced high quality supplies get tainted.

[Joe Real]

@galeso: When it comes to alcohol purification, it is a lot simpler to do than refilling ink jet printers with gunk. There is absolutely no reason for manufacturers to adulterate methanol to produce the gunk that you are imagining. And for whatever malicious reasons, they placed some gunk, the purification setup is quite easy to do and cheaply processed too. I've won a few awards for alcohol purification, especially separating methanol from ethanol from various agricultural waste products that were processed via fermentation.

[fennec_fox]

I think this is cool because in the video they mentioned having a fuel cell directly a (for ex.) phone. Supposedly there would be no charge time right? Just fill up and power.

[CorwinB]

I hate to be picky but this device isn't exactly a DIRECT methanol fuel cell. true direct methanol cells allow direct charge of the device from electricity from the methanol. This thing charges a battery inside the device, thus wasting energy via electrical resistance and then wastes energy again when it charges the device. The direct cells I have heard of in the past are cell phone battery sized and go right into the phone and could power it for 3-4 days. The first ones I heard about used pure, off the shelf, methanol and were simple and cheap to refill. This device sounds like it's taken all the awesome things about methanol cells and thrown that stuff out the window.

[Joe Real]

A battery may be needed for buffering. The advanced lithium batteries of today are over 95% efficient and have a lot longer charge and discharge cycles. Some lithium-silicon batteries recently developed are in the 99% efficiency.

[perfectblue97]

The big question is why?

From what I can see theis product is a big and clunky, expensive, and inconvenient to recharge. It's also likely to have a limited shelf life as the reaction inside it will degrade the components in time. It also provides only a limted number of recharges before you need to refill it.

It would be much more convenient just to carry around a spare battery. It would be smaller and cheaper, and you could recharge them at any wall outlet in the country. You can also buy plug in bateries to recharge your cell which are smaller and cheaper than this.

You also can't take a methanol fuel cell on a plane, or on long haul public transport due ti the fact that it's inflamable.

[Joe Real]

There was an earlier article here about approved fuel cell cartridges that can be brought on the plane and the policies and guidelines about that were formulated by the FAA and the fuel cell manufacturers.