Toshiba Mounts Late Charge In Fuel Cell Production May 9, 2008

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If you’ve been keeping an eye on the development of fuel cells (who hasn’t) you might remember Toshiba’s announcement back in 2005 of commercial availability by 2007.

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert chemical energy from substances such as methanol into electrical energy.

To charge a device you’d simply top up the methanol or replace the cartridge. It’s a technology that’s promising us weeks of usage from devices like notebooks, portable media players and mobile phones on a single charge, so it’s really quite important.

A year, several prototypes and a bunch of intermediary announcements later, Toshiba now seems pretty certainly that mass production of Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFCs) will begin in March next year, with a television using the technology planned before the end of 2009.

It actually seems like we’ll get to see these things in action quite soon then, and Toshiba has shown its commitment to the project by setting aside part of its capital expenditure to build a DMFC production line.

No doubt there will still be a few hurdles to jump, but if the technology has the potential everyone seems to be predicting, it could well change how we use these sorts of devices for good. – Paul Lester

[InfoWorld] [Toshiba]

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