Casio Computer Co. Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) announced that it has developed what it claims to be the world's smallest fuel cell for use in laptop personal computers, and aims to market it in 2007.
The polymer electrolyte fuel cell, which is being developed for use in automobiles and home appliances, has been miniaturized to almost the same size as a conventional lithium-ion battery. Its capacity is nearly four times higher than that of a conventional battery, and it can power a typical laptop computer for 8 to 16 hours.
The unit features a device that extracts hydrogen from methanol and sends the hydrogen to the main fuel cell. Casio, working jointly with Akira Igarashi, an engineering professor at Kogakuin University, succeeded in making the device as small as a ¥500 coin so that the entire unit would fit in a laptop personal computer (PC). The device that extracts hydrogen reaches very high temperatures, but Casio solved this problem by wrapping it in a heat-proof case, among other methods.
