Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
The fuel cell technology behind the PC was first shown at Nano Tech 2003 in February. NEC’s fuel cell at a glance Average output 14W Maximum output 24W Voltage 12V Cell weight 900g Fuel weight 300g PC+cell weight 2 kg PC size 288x280x40mm Run time 5hour approx Fuel 10% methanol solution.
“The development of NEC’s notebook PC with an internal fuel cell was enabled by improving the generating power of the fuel cell and developing peripheral technologies to install a fuel cell inside a PC,” said the firm.
The cell has the world’s best output density, claims NEC, of 40mW/cm 2 and produces an average output of 14W, and 24W maximum.
NEC aims to release a notebook PC with a built-in fuel cell on the market by end of 2004, and to make a notebook PC equipped with an internal fuel cell that has a battery life of 40 hours available within two years, the company said.
Earlier in 2003, Toshiba showed a 12W average (20W max) methanol fuel cell which runs for five hours on 50cc of methanol. “Toshiba will continue development of DMFC technology, with the aim of product commercialisation within 2004,” said the company at the time.
The development of NEC’s prototype, which is reported to use carbon nanotubes, was aided by the Japanese Ministry of Economy project for developing technologies and products applying nano-carbon technology.
