25 March 2009

Toshiba To Begin Mass-Producing
Portable Direct Methanol Fuel Cells in 2009!

Toshiba has demonstrated fuel-cell prototypes at the Consumer Electronic Show during the past few years and finally showed off its first cell phone prototype with a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) last October of 2008 at the Cutting-edge IT & Electronics Comprehensive Exhibition.

Although, we don’t have any firm dates for commercial availability of this fuel powered device, Japan's biggest newspaper, (Nikkei) reports that Toshiba will begin with mass production of compact direct methanol fuel cells for mobile devices such as mp3 players, smartphones and notebook computers starting as early as next month!!

Initial pricing is expected to range from ¥10,000 to ¥50,000 (US$104 to $519). The Nikkei said that Toshiba aims to lower the price to several thousand yen after ramping up output. Toshiba is targeting segment sales of ¥100 billion (US$1.037 billion) by fiscal 2015.

The Japanese firm, said to be first to turn out portable fuel cells on such a scale, is installing an assembly line at a Yokohama facility. Production levels and capital investment outlays have not been disclosed.

Although production will initially focus on external fuel cells for recharging, the company plans to commercialize mobile handsets and PCs with built-in fuel cells by the end of fiscal 2009.

From other hand, IDG News reported that Toshiba has problems securing certain components of fuel ‘chargers’ and will begin selling its first (DMFC) battery chargers later than expected. DMFC battery chargers are portable power sources used to recharge battery-powered devices instead of plugging them into the wall. Toshiba also plans to offer fuel cell products embedded in phones and laptops in place of batteries.

In a presentation earlier this year Atsutoshi Nishida, Toshiba’s president, said [the recharging units] would be released before the end of March but the company now says it won’t be available until later in the year. Despite the delay in the charger Toshiba remains committed to its original schedule for the DMFC packs for cell phones and laptop PCs, it said.

Looking back through all these years everything has been improved or been given an extra dimension, everything except the batteries technology and the battery life that basically remains pretty much the same through all these years but now, Toshiba claims it will soon completely supplant the lithium ion batteries commonly used in today's portable electronic devices.

Fuel cells can be thought of as 'refillable' batteries. But unlike a battery, which when exhausted must be recharged or discarded; fuel cells will run continuously, as long as there is fuel available.

Toshiba’s technology allows methanol to be stored at a much higher concentration, and achieves a much smaller fuel tank than before and powers round six hours of talk time while a typical battery in the same handset would provide between 3-4 hours.

As conceived by most consumer electronics manufacturers, many of whom have aggressive fuel cell development programs, the consumer would simply 'pop in' a replacement cartridge of methanol fuel when necessary.