A fuel cell to gas up your MP3 player

Cnet News ^ | 09/16/2005 | Michael Singer

[Panerai]

Toshiba is gearing up to release a fuel cell cartridge powered by methanol that could keep an iPod running for an additional two and a half days without a recharge.

The Tokyo-based company said it is testing prototypes of what it calls a direct methanol fuel cell, or DMFC. The cartridge contains a passive supply of the alternative fuel in highly concentrated form, which produces electricity by causing a chemical reaction.

Credit: Toshiba After three years of delays, Toshiba said commercial products based on the technology are expected to appear on store shelves in 2007.

Fuel cells usually use alcohol or hydrogen as fuel and can offer five to 10 times the power per unit weight as lithium-ion batteries.

Toshiba is developing two versions of the fuel cell. One is formatted for flash-based digital music players such as Apple Computer's iPod Shuffle. The other is for digital music players based on hard disk drives (HDD), such as the iPod Photo or Toshiba's Gigabeat player.

Toshiba said its 100-milliwatt version is similar in shape and size to a pack of gum and can power a flash-based player for approximately 35 hours on a single 3.5-milliliter charge.

A 300-milliwatt version of the fuel cell is about the size of a pack of playing cards and has enough juice to power an HDD-based player for approximately 60 hours on a single 10-milliliter charge.

[Panerai]

[Panerai]

Future fuel cell ipod ping

[MediaMole]

Now we can have MP3 players that can make you deaf AND blind.

(Don't drink the methanol.)

[operation clinton cleanup]

Something tells me this technology could be used for good.... and evil!

[Cagey]

It looks more like a Zippo than an MP3 player.

I wonder if you'll be able to bring that on an airplane.

[FireTrack]

Wow, I hope they make one for laptops!!!

[dts32041]

They have been working on them for about two years this is the first practical? application.

Problem is cost.

[FireTrack]

"Problem is cost."

Mmmmmm, must be expensive then... Those laptop batteries are pretty expensive already.

[playball0]

Hydrogen OK, Methanol might be a problem

[Sundog]

I would look for an electric motor bike next, something good for a hundred miles on a 2 liter flask of methanol tucked where the water bottle goes now.

[martin_fierro]

	iPod
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