NEC Delays Fuel Cell Launch

NEC has succeeded in reducing the size of a prototype direct methanol fuel cell for use with notebook PCs but says it is unlikely to see commercialization until at least two years later than previously forecast.

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) mix methanol with air and water to produce electrical power and are viewed by many as a potential successor to lithium-ion and other batteries used in devices such as notebook personal computers and other portable electronics devices. Their by-products are heat and water.

On Display

NEC's new prototype has a power unit that is 20 percent smaller than the company's previous prototype and has an output density of 70 milliwatts per square centimeter, the company says in a statement. The new fuel cell also includes a control system that helps optimize power output for operations such as machine start-up and shut-down, it says.

It will be unveiled on Wednesday when the World PC Expo exhibition begins in Tokyo.

A single 250 cubic-centimeter methanol fuel cartridge can provide enough power to run a notebook PC for 10 hours, NEC says. The prototype machine is based on a 1.1-GHz Pentium M processor and has 256MB of memory, a 40GB hard drive, 12.1-inch color TFT (thin-film transistor) LCD, and runs the Windows XP Professional operating system.

A picture of the prototype released by NEC this week showed that the fuel cell resembles a notebook computer dock. The entire PC sits on top of most of the fuel cell and just past the back of the computer the cell rises to the same height as the PC.

Several prototypes developed as part of the company's DMFC research have been shown before and the company has previously said it planned to have a commercial product on the market in 2004. However, this date has now been put back to around 2007.

Challenges Remain

While development of fuel cell technology is more or less at the point where it can be commercialized, a number of other issues have yet to be solved, says Diane Foley, a spokesperson for NEC in Tokyo.

These include regulations regarding carriage and use of fuel cells on airplanes and other forms of public transport. NEC had been hoping that such legal hurdles to commercialization would have been cleared by this year but it now expects this to happen around 2007, thus the delay, Foley says.

There are other issues that need to be solved including standardization of fuel cell cartridges and establishment of a sales network were new cartridges or fuel can be purchased.

Earlier this year the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) formed a working group to draw up standards to ensure compatibility between micro fuel-cells after prompting from Toshiba and other Japanese companies. The group will attempt to set a standard for compatibility between fuel cells and fuel cartridges and hopes to set common guidelines by 2007, a spokesperson for Toshiba said at the time of the group's founding.

At the Ceatec Japan 2004 exhibition in Japan in early October, Hitachi showed a DMFC prototype for use with notebook computers that it said will be available in 2006.