Warm air to issue from boozy notebooks

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://itnews.com.au/story.cfm?ID=9993">http://itnews.com.au/story.cfm?ID=9993</a><br /><br />Mark Hansen sent me a link to this surprisingly badly-written article. The topic is fascinating though - fuel cell technology will revolutionize the portable device industry. But three years away? Last year they said it was two years away - looks like they're having more of a problem bringing this to market than they thought.<br /><br />"Booze fuelled sales reps could find a new drinking partner in their laptop, with Toshiba saying alcohol-powered fuel cells, whose only by product is warm moist air, will be on the market within three years. Speaking at the Mobile and Wireless Live event in Sydney, Toshiba product marketing manager Justin White said 30 ml of methanol would allow a sugar cube sized fuel cell to power a laptop for up to a month. White said fuel cell technology has already been deployed in Japan, where they are used to power vending machines.<br /><br />Fuel cells work by converting methanol to hydrogen to create electricity. Fuel cell technology appropriate for laptops and PDAs is available today, White said, but commercial deployment is being restricted by cost and approval issues. As an example, the American Federal Aviation Authority, he said, is interested in the possible dangers presented by a Boeing 747 full of fuel cell powered laptops. He admitted that the cost of the units is currently very high, but said this would come down as production increased with take-up. He said the exhaust air is not expected to adversely affect components, saying the moisture could even be used for cooling the CPU."

[Will T Smith]

http://itnews.com.au/story.cfm?ID=9993

As an example, the American Federal Aviation Authority, he said, is interested in the possible dangers presented by a Boeing 747 full of fuel cell powered laptops.


300 cell powered laptops is certainly something to be concerned. At 30mL of Methanol each, thats a grand total of 9L of methanol. Their concerns are certainly well placed.

I however, am far MORE concerned about the 3000 gallons of jet fuel already onboard.

[Mark (NL)]

Wow what a security risk 9l of methanol on a jet &lt;lol> Ow and they are all contained in their own cilinder... 30 ml seems like just as much as gas lighter... which is way more dangerous because this is liquid gas (so gas under pressure) and those aren't banned from planes either! I'm sure a container that holds the methanol is quite airtight else it would just damp of in matter of a day &lt;lol> Not to mention that a vendor wants the container to be bump resistant else they would get back laptops and other devices all the time because of leaks... Security yes, being anal about it no...

Just imagine that you could run a PocketPC for 3 months on that amount of "fuel" :-) Not even to mention what this does for the enviroment :-)

[Aceze]

Jeez, whatta about all that duty-free booze everyone stocks up on during any international flight - no safety problem there!

Aceze

[mclemore]

So, this may just be the chemist in me, but doesn't it bother anybody else that any reaction converting methanol (CH3OH) to hydrogen (H2) would result in a carbon containing byproduct?

BTW, fuels cells convert hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) into water, nothing more, nothing less. What is the methanol for? :?

TTFN

[Rob Alexander]

So, this may just be the chemist in me, but doesn't it bother anybody else that any reaction converting methanol (CH3OH) to hydrogen (H2) would result in a carbon containing byproduct?

BTW, fuels cells convert hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) into water, nothing more, nothing less. What is the methanol for? :?

TTFN

Yeah, that's not nearly as smooth as using pure hydrogen. It's the same practical issue as with fuel cell cars. There was lots of debate in that industry as to whether they should power them with regular old gasoline or propane simply because the task of setting up distribution for hydrogen is huge while the distribution system for gas (and to a lesser extent propane) is already there. I'm not 100% sure how that debate is going, but the issue is probably similar here. It would be cheap and easy to fuel these with a product that's already being mass produced and distributed, where its harder and more expensive to work out the details of distributing a pure hydrogen recharge cylinder.

In answer to your first question, yes it bothers me too. And even more than the instant case of a little extra carbon, I figure if we're going to introduce a technology with the potential for clean, abundant energy that fuel cells have, let's just do it right. We'll be living with the decisions we make now for decades.