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Apple Pursuing Fuel Cell Tech for PowerBooks?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Apple Pursuing Fuel Cell Tech for PowerBooks?

Originally posted by hvfsl
The only parts of the laptop Intel does not make is the case and screen. So it is posible Intel want to move to power sources since it is still electronics.
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I don't think intel do the mobo's either (at least not in most laptops) I also dont think they do the hard drives or other periphorals (CDR etc) They do make onboard sound and graphics chips (i think) but they aren't that widly used either.

They're a chip manufacturer not a general electronics firm.
 
Originally posted by loneAzdgari
The problem with fuel cell technology is that H20 takes lots of energy to split and the only way it can be done which doesnt damage the environment is at wind farms or sources of renewable energy. If you use coal power stations to split the compound, it will damage the environment. So the technology is there, just not the infrastructure to produce hydrogen cleanly, safely and efficiently.
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Actually there are several other ways to refine Hydrogen than taking it from water and in fact water electrolysis only provides a very small percentage of the world's Hydrogen production. You don't need to produce the hydrogen though since it's unlikely you will be filling the fuel cell with hydrogen. More likely it'd be a hydrocarbon fuel or even just water. You can easily electrolyse the water in the recharge phase to get the necessary hydrogen and oxygen.

I'm not familiar with what they're planning at the battery sort of level but I expect they won't follow the model put forward for cars or industrial uses. I also doubt they'll use oxygen/hydrogen since then you need to work with compressed gases and that's not going to be overly nice. They'll go for liquid or solid fuels.

That said fuel cells aren't new the only thing making them more attractive now is the miniaturisation.
 
Originally posted by artificiallife
you didn't read the article, you don't know anything about fuel cells, and obviously you don't know basic science. H20 is water buddy, not Oxygen, and air does not have much water in it. ;)
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Obviously you've never been to South Florida. One hundred percent humidity every day baby!!!!
 
I have to agree above that this is not going to be something were going to see anytime soon - my prediction is there might be a fuelcelled powered G6 laptop ;)

Great tech and huge potential - but even getting the thing to work at larger scales for vehicles isn't here yet. When we get good power returns on fuel cells they will become a part of everyday life.

D
 
Originally posted by bertagert
i didn't read the article, nor do i know anything about fuel cells, but couldn't you get the hydrogen from bringing in the air and seperating the hydrogen from the oxygen (from H2O, which air has plenty of)?
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No. The amount of power you'd get from the fuel cell is lower than the amount it would take to separate the Hydrogen from the Oxygen.
 
Fuel Cells = Seattle-like weather?

If we use fuel cells the way we use fossil fuels, would the globe end up covered in clouds? Seems like messing with Hydrogen on a grand scale could be a disaster.
 
I don't see how this can work -- If you need any sort of compressed gas to power this, they won't let you take it on a plane with you. Especially hydrogen -- very flammable. Unless they have another source, maybe a better battery technology is the way to go.
 
Originally posted by tny
No. The amount of power you'd get from the fuel cell is lower than the amount it would take to separate the Hydrogen from the Oxygen.
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Well. The amount of power you get from a battery is also lower than the amount it takes to charge.

Some batteries are rechargable (Lithium-Ion) and some aren't (Copper/Acid).

Likewise, some fuel cell designs are rechargable (re-seperate the Hydrogen from the Oxygen) and some aren't (use Methanol).

Fuel cells are just a different electrical storage medium using Hydrogen instead of some form of chemical acid - both can be dangerous and cumbersome if not properly contained - and this is the area where fuel cell research is still most busily searching.

I wouldn't use a current fuel cell for a laptop, just like I wouldn't lug around a car battery (mmm, liquid acid) on the base of a laptop.

Apple (and Intel and everyone else) are looking for the company that can package it all up (be it hydrogen absorbing pellets or some exotic nano-honeycomb cell) and produce the AA battery of fuel cells. And the company that can find that would be silly to lock themselves in exclusively with anyone.
 
Did I read something on this site a while ago about some company or lab toying with the notion of thin-film polymer gel batteries in laptops? Or was that polymer-gel based cell phones? Man, now I'm mixing up my designer technologies.
 
There would only be waste (of any form) if the designers allowed there to be. Hydrogen and oxygen would produce water as 'waste' if the designers decided to release the water into the atmosphere (I think it would be a gas after the reaction). If they decided to contain the water for future electrolysis , there would be no direct waste from the fuel cell. Of course, depending on where it gets the energy to perform electrolysis on the water, there could be a lot of waste coming from that source :rolleyes:

If methanol were to be used, I suspect it would have to be a pure form of methanol for there to be no harmful emissions. Methanol found in our favourite alcoholic beverage has other chemicals in there besides methanol, though it's mostly just water. I personally don't like the idea of using methanol because there would be leftover carbon somewhere in the process (unless combustion were used and we got carbon dioxide emissions instead, which is equally unwanted). Same goes for ethanol and all the other alcohols. BTW, I noticed that some people here think that we drink ethanol....well I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to stay out of the hospital and keep my eyesight....

Overall, I think that hydrogen and oxygen is the way to go if fuel cells are to be used. If the design reuses its water, all the manufacturer needs to do is put a few drops of de-ionized water in the cell before shipping it off, and it's ready to be 'charged' (use electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen). Now the only question is 'What kind of battery life do we have?'

These fuel cells sound promising, but I think the lithium polymer battery is the way to go for now :p
 
Re: Fuel Cells = Seattle-like weather?

Originally posted by ReelFocused
If we use fuel cells the way we use fossil fuels, would the globe end up covered in clouds? Seems like messing with Hydrogen on a grand scale could be a disaster.
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The amount of water produced from combustion of a fossil fuel is much higer than a fuel cell due to the efficiencies of the reaction. Assuming an internal combustion engine is 20% efficient (not a bad assumption) and a fuel cell is 55% (again not bad). So the products of an internal combustion reaction are CO2 and H20 (along with smaller amounts of CO and NOx). To do the same amount of work with an IC engine you have to burn nearly 3 times as much fuel. Therefore, the fuel cells will actually produce less water for the amount of power needed. And they won't produce excess CO2 (greenhouse gas). Fuel cells are great...they're close to being used large scale. The only thing holding them back is distribution and cost (catalyst is platinum which is quite expensive).
 
um..

my cousin in new mexico came to visit recently, and he had a fuel cell running his PDA. I don't know exactly how it worked and it was about the size of a big wallet, but he seemed to love it. I'll see if i can find out more about it. And whoever said 2050, your trippin, there are two places here in NC that re hot on fuel cells for cars, and a friend i had in one of them said that GM's prediction of 2010 seems to be right on for the first production fuel cell cars. they are also in the works to create a fuel cell that acts as a generator so that energy companies will become interested and begin populating the US with fill-up points... kind of like the propane racks at gas stations, only bigger.

just what i've learned about it.

technocoy
 
Originally posted by elfin buddy
BTW, I noticed that some people here think that we drink ethanol....well I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to stay out of the hospital and keep my eyesight....
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Actually, you can drink ethanol (moonshine)...methanol will blind you and in large enough quantities kill you. Problem with ethanol is usually you have a small percentage of methanol present (unless it's high quality).
 
I think that they (apple) need to pursue this technology, becuase when they come out with a way to make it work, everyone will copy it. Intel doesn't want apple to get involved because intel just released centrino which probably cost them a lot of money in research and has low power consumption. Who will buy a cintrino when power doesn't matter, apple is a threat to them.

That being said, I think that this would be cool, but from my understanding of the technology I just don't see it any time soon, if at all in a laptop. A car I can see, cars can leak water out onto the road, but a laptop (its been said here before) peeing all over me, no thanks I'll just plug it in (where it usually stays anyway).

Peas.
 
OK I see that you are right now...I just did a little research... :p

But I'm still confused because I swear to God that my chem teacher said methanol was the stuff in alcoholic drinks... lol oh well! :rolleyes:
 
water as cooling?

The water by-product could be separated again using the heat produced by the processor.

No fans - just a self contained symbiotic cycle of energy exchange. Of course some energy would be lost in the process - but that could be provided by a small rechargable battery that could last for weeks...
 
Re: water as cooling?

Originally posted by evolu
The water by-product could be separated again using the heat produced by the processor.

No fans - just a self contained symbiotic cycle of energy exchange. Of course some energy would be lost in the process - but that could be provided by a small rechargable battery that could last for weeks...
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OK, I'm not familiar with this at all....How would that work? How can you separate water using only heat? Wouldn't you need to convert it first?
 
Originally posted by mgargan1
one of the laws of thermal dynamics states that you can not create or destroy matter or engery; however, you can change it. My question is, because of this, where would the by product go? There has to be some form of waste, and if there is, then it will probably be hydrogen, which too much of in the atmosphere would cause the ozone to be depleted. So it would actually be harmful to the environment to use your computer, and that's not what Al Gore would endorse now is it?
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Hydrogen is an inert gas and poses no threat to global warming. Actually, like helium, hydrogen escape the Earth's gravitational pull and is lost to space. BTW, I'm taking Environmental Engineering classes in college (and I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night).
 
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