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12/03/2005 | Hydrogen: The next fuel for laptops?

Therese Poletti

A small New Jersey company is working on a hydrogen-fueled battery that it hopes will eventually provide eight hours of power for laptop computers.

 

At Intel's Developer Forum in San Francisco on Tuesday, Millennium Cell demonstrated an IBM ThinkPad running on a prototype of the battery. Most notebook computers today can run for three or four hours on a fully charged battery. So far, Millennium Cell's runs for only three hours, but the goal is to increase that performance to eight hours.

Many companies are looking for ways to boost the longevity of laptop batteries, including a slew of start-ups that Intel has invested in.

And big laptop makers like Toshiba, NEC and others are working on fuel cell technology, mostly based on methanol. Casio, Sony and Samsung are developing fuel cell technology as well. Canon recently presented a paper at a symposium in Japan discussing a prototype of a hydrogen-powered micro fuel cell for video cameras and other devices.

Millennium Cell's product is unusual in that it uses hydrogen and sodium borohydride. In its current state, the Millennium Cell battery looks a bit like a science project. The company outfitted an IBM ThinkPad laptop with a fuel cell that is 6 millimeters thick. The fuel cell fits across the top of the notebook casing. In the future, the fuel cell would be designed inside the laptop's casing.

A cartridge a little larger than a cassette tape provides the fuel and is attached to the laptop by a thin tube. The tube plugs into the slot for the power cord on the laptop.

The battery works by initially storing sodium borohydride as a solution in the cartridge. This solution passes through a fuel pump and moves into a catalyst chamber, which triggers a reaction.

The reaction causes hydrogen to be released from the liquid fuel. The hydrogen then moves to the fuel cell in the laptop, where it mixes with oxygen. Oxygen is let into the laptop through a series of perforated holes in the laptop casing. The reaction of hydrogen and oxygen creates electricity. Water is a byproduct of this reaction, but the water leaves the fuel cell as a vapor, said Adam Briggs, a Millennium senior vice president.

For now, the possibility of a hydrogen-fueled laptop battery is still at least two years off. Millennium, based in Eatontown, N.J., came to Intel's conference to make contacts with personal computer makers who might want to incorporate the technology into future laptop designs.

Millennium Cell said its goal is to make a battery that will cost PC makers about $25. It would sell the battery as an extra battery to consumers for about $150, the price of a standard secondary laptop battery.

``If we can keep the cost south of $75 in terms of cost to the manufacturers, we should be in pretty good shape,'' Briggs said.

On Monday, the company announced a joint venture with Dow Chemical to collaborate on developing and commercializing portable fuel cells for use by consumers and the military.

``We want to help take it from a science-project-like product to a real product,'' said Chris McDougall, Dow's program manager for portable energy in Midland, Mich.

As part of the agreement, Dow Chemical is buying an equity interest in Millennium equal to 3 percent of the company, with an option to buy up to 19.9 percent of Millennium Cell.

Millennium Cell initially focused on fuel cell batteries for cars. But in 2003, with costs for fuel cell batteries for cars still too high, the company decided to switch to batteries for portable devices. It has also been developing prototype battery packs for the U.S. Air Force.

Contact Therese Poletti at tpoletti@mercurynews.com or at (415) 477-2510.

Sillicon Valley News (Estados Unidos)

 


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