A $30 Fuel Cell mobile phone recharger

Taiwanese researchers have built new mobile phone rechargers based on fuel cell technology that they say will cost little once manufacturing partners are on board. The handset rechargers will cost around 30 US dollars while the fuel cell will come in small blue plastic tubes for about 30 cents each. The real innovation by Taiwan’s publicly funded Industrial Technology Research Institute is the fuel cell for the recharger, plasticized solid state hydrogen. The plastic is soft enough that it can be shaped to suit the needs of different devices. It’s designed to react with water to release the hydrogen to a fuel cell to produce electricity. People using the handset recharger will get a two hour charge per tube of fuel. ITRI isn’t the only group working on fuel cells though, Toshiba has been promising the portable battery charger for electronic devices based on a direct methanol fuel cell. In DMFCs, methanol, water and air react to produce electricity giving off a small amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide as bi products. The company has said its first DMFC charger could be out within the next few months, though it was originally due out earlier this year. With reporting by Den Nysted in Taipei, I’m Nick Barber, IDG News Service.

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