In future, PCs will run on gas, say Japanese boffins

18 Feb 2008 | 13:25 GMT

By Nick Booth

THE DAYS WHEN your computer lives and dies by your electricity supply could be over. Power cuts, and those hard disk trashing electrical surges, could be a thing of the past, if new technology developed by Japan Steel Works is successful.

They've developed fuel cells to replace batteries for electronic devices. The rationale is to reduce the carbon foot print of technology users everywhere. This probably makes grim reading for companies like American Power Conversion who've made a multi-bezillion dollar fortune out of taming our wildly inconsistent electricity supplies.

If APC executives end up selling The Big Issue, they can blame the direct-methanol fuel cell, which uses methanol as the fuel source. That started the ball rolling. Now the Japanese have discovered the ultimate clean and replenishable fuel, hydrogen, can be stored in a matchbox-sized aluminium tank.

Inside the 4cm by 6cm tank a hydrogenated compound releases hydrogen gas when heated. It can provide 9.3 litres of hydrogen gas. Once finished, you dump the hydrogen-storage alloy in a recycling bin presumably. Make sure it's finished though, or your half-full fuel cell could explode if someone chucks a fag end into the recycler.

This propriety hydrogen-storage alloy has to be heated above 80C before it begins to release hydrogen, but modifications mean it'll release hydrogen when heated to just 60C. So the natural heat of running a laptop would be enough to spark the gas supply into action, apparently. This will enable the system to work off the heat naturally radiated from portable devices during
normal operation.

Japan Steel Works says fuel cells will eventually replace batteries as a form of power supply.

In cars, a tank filled with this new proprietary hydrogen-storage alloy can store some 3.6 times more hydrogen gas than a comparably sized pressurized gas tank. To travel the same distance, you only need a fuel tank that weighs half as much, according to electronicdesign.com.

These new fuel cells for cards won't be on the market for three years. There'll be an even longer wait for the fuel cell to replace the battery. So executives at APC and all the other power management companies have got plenty of time to type up their CVs and put some money aside for the kids education.

Still, I can't wait for the day my laptop runs on hydrogen. The market's really going to explode! µ

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