Thursday, March 6, 2003
NEC exhibited a fuel cell under development to supply power for mobile devices, at the "nano tech 2003" (International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference) held Feb. 26-28, 2003.
The company has demonstrated the fuel cell driving its notebook PC as well as tablet PC.
Already, NEC gave a demonstration of the fuel cell activating a toy propeller and a mobile phone. This was the first occasion that a notebook PC was driven for operation by the fuel cell. NEC plans to market the fuel cell in the latter half of 2004 or in 2005.
The demonstration was performed with the fuel cell attached to the PC externally. The fuel pole of the cell is of the direct methanol type; that is, a methanol solution is directly injected. It has achieved an output of 19 watts maximum (and an average of 12 watts). With this power supply, NEC said a notebook could run about three or four hours.
A tank is installed on the upper part of the fuel cell for storing a methanol solution. This structure allows for diffusion of the solution into the fuel pole. The tank contains 240ml of the solution with 10% methanol.
The cell uses a common type of catalyst, made of platinum (Pt) mixed with ruthenium (Ru), as was the case with earlier prototypes. NEC's fuel cell features use of a carbon nano-horn as supporting materials for the catalyst. The carbon nano-horn prevents agglomeration of fine particles of the catalyst, which contributes to improving response rates.
This prototype fuel cell is free from agglomeration while the diameters of the catalyst's particle are 1nm to 2nm.
According to NEC, it has plans to demonstrate the fuel cell embedded in a device. With an eye toward commercialization, the company also presented, at this year's nano tech exhibition, a mockup notebook PC with a fuel cell embedded
By: DocMemory
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