News PDAs and Laptops Powered by Suds

From Wired:

Giving new meaning to clean energy, a New Jersey company is developing micro fuel cells for mobile phones and laptops using a major ingredient in soap.

Millennium Cell of Eatontown, New Jersey, is working on hydrogen fuel cells based on sodium borohydride, a high-energy form of borate, or borax, a natural mineral mined to make laundry soap.

When passed over a proprietary catalyst, a solution of sodium borohydride releases hydrogen, which is combined with oxygen in a fuel cell to generate electricity.

Millennium Cell said it has developed several prototype systems for mobile phones, PDAs and laptops that are no bigger than standard battery packs, but deliver up to four times the battery life.

Full story here

It's the DAZ doorstep challenge! Does your washing powder create as much hydrogen as DAZ?!

 

Ok it makes water, but where does that water GO?

Also, how do u charge them?

 

Straight into your pocket
Worth it i guess!

 

so it looks like youve pissed yourself? Nice.

 

Some variety of urostomy bag type affair?

*n

 

Water cannon sticking out the front

 

I would make the battery slightly smaller and leave room for water storage... just pull out your phone and empty it every now and then... "Man, I'm thirsty... I sure wish I had some... oh, wait <whips out phone>"

Although I think $1.50 for a recharge is a bit costly... even at a month of standby... I don't want to know how many times I've recharged my phone, much less how much money would be in someone else's hands if I had to pay $1.50 for every time

 

Yeah, the recharge cost is the limiting factor with fuel cells at the moment. They can make cars that run on them and the only bi-product is water; which is fantastic. But they need to be filled with compressed hydrogen which I'm guessing uses a lot of power to compress and transport. And that energy comes from... oil/gas/nuclear power

It's an interesting subject though and could be a good thing for the future with a little more development.

 

/me wonders if it's possible to go water->hydrogen cell->water... theorhetically possible, that is...


hrm

 

I'm sure they'll come up with a powerless way to harvest hydrogen from water or the air sooner or later. If they do it affordably then it should be good

 

see, that's what I was thinking about... if there is such a way, you have this cycle: water->hydrogen cell->power + water

Not exactly cold fusion, but...