Fuel cell power for your gadgets

MTI Micro, a subsidiary of Mechanical Technology Incoporated, unveiled a portable charger on Wednesday that uses replaceable fuel cartridges.

MTI Micro is not the first, and hopefully won't be the last, company to go to the fuel cell for portable convenient power. (People refer to these new tries as "fuel cell gadget chargers," though to me that seems like it refers to a charger for powering fuel cell gadgets.)

MTI Micro's Mobion prototype uses replacement fuel cell cartridges.

(Credit: MTI Micro)

Just this past September, Medis came out with the 24-7 Power pack, a charger powered by a liquid fuel cell, for only $40 with replacement packs for about $20.

The MTI Micro Mobion prototype works with cartridges of the liquid fuel methanol. Each cartridge offers about 25 hours of power. When it's depleted, users just pop it out of the charger and replace it with another one.

Sounds promising, but we're still waiting to hear back from MTI Micro on the pricing of the charger and those cartridges. The company says the MTI Micro Fuel Cell Charger will be available as a product toward the end of 2009.

So, what does 25 hours of fuel cell power get you?

According to MTI Micro, you could use it to fully recharge any cell phone 10 times. You could also use it to power an MP3 player to play 10,000 songs or watch 100 hours of video.

As a person who travels a lot and tires of carrying various adapters, this is definitely something I'd want to try. As I'm generally a carry-on only traveler, it's a good think this "liquid" gadget could be taken onboard.

[dmenefee]

Unless those cartridges are reusable, this is yet another source of garbage for the landfills.

[edmundh]

How does this compare with the same type of charger powered by traditional disposable/rechargable batteries? Functionally it seems equivalent. Do I carry batteries or fuel cartridges?

[jakebala]

I think w/ fuel cells you are SUPPOSED to send them back to the manufacturer for reuse. But seriously who is going to do that? Those things will end up in a landfill.

It's basically a new age battery. You carry it around and it charges stuff for use and when it's done you discard it and buy another one.

[dmksaved]

pretty cool , good luck getting that on a airplane . very doubtful they would allow it .
It would be nice too if it hooked up to mini camcorder or camera
seems almost a wast for $20 for a 25 hour charge , basically your paying almost 1 dollar an hour . so it should at least have some internal power or something. Without the packs its useless , and you probably can't plan on going to your local store and get a new pack like you do with regular batteries. .
I will stick to my wall jack, or car jack to charge my cell phone 10 times. I don't travel a lot but for those that do this could be useful. I probably would have a hard time spending 20 bucks for a replacement pack.

[Deathbringer]

Hydrogen please. Hydrogen is the future, spend a little time developing it. This is energy\fuel source of the 21st century.

[Joe Real]

It is the same greedy business model without a sense of environmental consciousness. Well, they are in this for profit. They are pricing the cartridges based on what they think you are paying for the convenience.

Why not price the fuel cell with a good markup, and dare to have a care for other human beings instead of fleecing them out, to produce cartridges that are easily refillable! How difficult will the cartridge have to be refillable? Why can't we refill the cartridges ourselves? Have it easily refillable if you have conscience.

Instead they are designing specialty fuel cartrdiges with the intent of being only fillable by the fuel cell company to the exclusion of others. Methanol is very cheap fuel, at about $2/gallon at the high price. And here, they wanted us to cough up $20-$45 per fraction of methanol fuel. We want convenience, but we are not dumb. If you can fill a car tank with gas, you should be able to fill a fuel cell cartridge with methanol!

The cartridge price is a total rip-off! There is no excuse why it should not be easily refillable by ordinary people.

[patch991]

Yea, I'm sure having these cartridges in my carry-on will go over well!

[Joe Real]

Another alternative is to define the standard for fuel cartridges so that any company can make the cartridges that are interchangeable with other company's fuel cell devices. For example, batteries comes in various standard sizes, so why not cartridges. They offer convenience for others to buy while on the go.

Of course the best is still for owners of the fuel cell to allow them to refill easily the cartridges if they have the time to do so. I am willing to buy the fuel cell device for $200 as long as I can refill the fuel myself. At $2/gal of methanol, that could last me a month of use for $2 fuel.

The question then is how many fuel charging cycles does the fuel cell charger lasts?

[ferretboy88]

I have an idea. Stop buying all these toys and ride a bike to work that would be really green. If every liberal sold his or her car it would cure global warming.

[Wiggletoe]

My understanding is they got the FAA to approve it as a carry-on some time ago but they should have a mail-in program where you mail-in spent cartriages and they mail you a refilled one for a norminal charge plus postage, they should be able to talk the Post Office into it. If they allow self refills people could get fuel at the wrong concentration or get dirt and dust into the works and prevent continued operation.