Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Said to Be Working with Intelligent Energy on Fuel Cell Technology for Portable Devices

ellsworth said:
I know I'm being a little lazy but this article fails to explain just a wee bit what Fuel Cell Technology really is and why Apple would be interested in it.
Click to expand...

I cannot say why Apple would be interested in it since I can't see it actually happening, but here is an example:
508px-Solid_oxide_fuel_cell_protonic.svg.png


It seems suitable for a car but not for a phone. If I understand correctly, you have to give it liquid or gaseous fuel, and it needs air intake.

----------
wizard said:
You can run fuel cells on many fluids such as alcohols, hydrogen does not need to be supplied in its elemental form. As it is though all forms of stored energy have the potential to be dangerous. Plain old batteries can go into thermal run away, explode or other wise fail in hazardous ways. Gasoline is highly volatile but we use it daily. Even a tree is a form of stored energy and can get very hot when burned.
Click to expand...

The advantage of the battery is that there is no possibility of its energy source to combust all at once. Also, you can charge it using electrical current.
 
Im surprised we haven't seen an iphone with solar cells within or below the LCD (with a way for light to get through the screen).
 
merkava said:
Good point, they're not Professional Senior Technology Securities Analysts, that's for sure.

So take this rumour with a grain of salt until it can be vaguely confirmed - or not.
Click to expand...

If they were Professional Senior Technology Securities Analysts they'd always be wrong. Or maybe they are, who knows.
 
A brief summary of Fuel Cells to hopefully dispel some mis-information in this thread:

Fuel cells react hydrogen and oxygen to create water. A barrier in the fuel cell between two reservoirs allows the proton in a hydrogen atom to pass through, but prevents the electron. This electron instead is forced to travel through an electrical circuit, thereby creating the electrical power. Water is therefore created in the oxygen reservoir.

You don't need to use hydrogen gas, any combustible liquid or gas will do (even though there is no traditional combustion in a fuel cell). However, if for example alcohol was used, you would end up with a buildup of carbon and oxygen in the fuel reservoir, which will either gunk everything up, or could even explode.

The water produced could be discarded, but it is far more likely it would be retained inside the device, and electrolysed back into oxygen and hydrogen when the device was recharged.

The main problem with fuel cells is storing the gases. They can be stored under high pressure, but this would not be practical for small devices. Instead the gas will have to be stored in either a liquid solution that can dissolve large amounts of hydrogen, or in a metal matrix. Either method will add a fair amount of weight to the device.
 
gnasher729 said:
More importantly, whether Apple comes first or second, they might be able to produce laptops and phones with huge battery life.
Click to expand...

Remember, Apple COULD make phones, tablet and laptops with a MUCH longer batter life than they currently have, but they, and no one else have decided they are happy with the current battery life and as tech improves, they don't offer longer batter life, they make the device thinner.

Apple has total control over that, and could make devices tomorrow with much longer battery life, but they, and they alone choose not to.

They is no one pointing a gun at Apple's head over this, this is a actual choice they have made as a company to put the thinness of a product over the length of time a battery lasts.

Do you really believe for one moment if someone came along and said here is a new tech, exact same battery size, but lasts 3x a long, Apple would keep the current device size and advertise it as having 3x the battery life?
 
Liquid Metal

I was always under the impression that their 'liquid metal' program was all about alternative energy development, not small parts. Looks like this may support that.
 
dnlklr said:
If Apple solves the battery life problem with a crazy leap forward like this then people will finally shut up about the post-jobs innovation problem
Click to expand...

If you do some basic research on fuel cells, you will quickly learn that they are not a "leap forward" by any means. In fact, fuel cells are a big step backwards because they cannot be plugged into the wall. They must be refueled with hydrogen, CNG, etc. and produce water or other byproducts as a result of the reaction.

No, fuel cells are a non-started for consumer electronics. They are just another way to maintain the status quo and to tie your electronic device to a hydrocarbon source. Even the hydrogen for fuel cells is not produced in a green way, but rather from fossil fuels. This is not part of the Apple ethos.
 
MacRumors said:
Intelligent Energy recently revealed it purchased patents for mobile fuel cell technology from Eveready in association with a major international electronics company. Though the partner company is not revealed in any public filings, the Daily Mail's sources claim the mystery company is Apple. Intelligent Energy already has ties to Apple, hiring former Apple executive Joe O'Sullivan to serve as its Chief Operating Officer in late 2011. O'Sullivan spent 15 years in operations at Apple, and managed the introduction of the original iMac.

Apple is no stranger to fuel cell technology, filing a pair of patents in 2010 and 2011 that describe the use of the technology in portable computing devices. The Cupertino company also uses fuel cells on a large scale to help power its corporate headquarters and its Maiden, North Carolina data center.

Article Link: Apple Said to Be Working with Intelligent Energy on Fuel Cell Technology for Portable Devices
Click to expand...

I see any innovations first moving to their mega data centers, and the 'portable' ones moving to 'Apple in a box' services (ala Google in a box). Apple has to distribute most of it's services out to the ISPs and locales pretty soon in order to support the orders of magnitude in traffic that will be blasting throughout the world, and in third worlds, this may have to be standalone capabilities that are solar by day and fuel cell by night.

Finally, portable will be 'toaster' sized to support your local Apple in a box instance (consider it Airport Mega Extreme), where a local cache of your Apple'ness' will be inside your home. Given iBeacons, AppleTV, Apple HomeKit and Healthkit, you'll need an 'always' up solution that gives you DR hardened Wifi, and linkages to a GSM/LTE uplink (if they exist) and/or your local ISP, even if your house is dark. As part of this, a battery pack for your macbook that is fuel cell driven is a natural final mile (you got powered laptop, powered local wifi, linked to GSM/LTE that has a larger cache of apple services, and if the regional links are good, a link back to the Maiden (or whereever internationally) mothership.

After internet bandwidth and 'G's' 'always on KWs' will be the next limitation of computing that Apple has to integrate into it's experience
 
AZREOSpecialist said:
If you do some basic research on fuel cells, you will quickly learn that they are not a "leap forward" by any means. In fact, fuel cells are a big step backwards because they cannot be plugged into the wall. They must be refueled with hydrogen, CNG, etc. and produce water or other byproducts as a result of the reaction.

No, fuel cells are a non-started for consumer electronics. They are just another way to maintain the status quo and to tie your electronic device to a hydrocarbon source. Even the hydrogen for fuel cells is not produced in a green way, but rather from fossil fuels. This is not part of the Apple ethos.
Click to expand...

There a still, cloudy days, and days away from geo-thermal. 'water' and other byproducts (e.g. carbon dioxide), are pretty good alternatives to point source pollutants, and the need to be 'always' on will go from luxury to requirements as health and home fall into apple's portfolio of consumer services.

I'm looking at my power, UPS and local power requirements now (I'm in tornado and ice storm alley), and it's $40K for 20KVA (I have a 100 amp and 200 amp service 208V service for a 4 acre farm) Solar setup (and no local credits). I'm spending $2000 year on electric, so the CBA is telling me NOT to go there, but to invest in local CNG generation. Fuel Cells for that would be a lot nicer than the classic piston generator (noise and efficiency).

Scaling it down to the critical few... having a 4KVA (roughly 30A), would cover all my critical items (security/home automation, internet (I'm on fiber, and a GSM backup), an essential lighting and a microwave) I'm good to go. Using 3 or 4 10A Fuel Cells services would scale nicely for me.

Again, I don't see apple building these 'into' devices... but I think they will be the new 'bricks' of the future for charging/powering equipment... a power cord, a 'fuel container' slot, aa fuel cell combo with power transformer to step it down to feed laptops and network devices and charging phones, and the ability to power on the fuel cell when the electrical power is off or unstable.
 
Good luck.

I tried a sodium borohydride-fueled fuel cell product a few years back.

It failed miserably - most of the time it would mysteriously shut off after a half-hour or so.

And even when working could barely manage a one watt output.

It was marketed primarily as a cell phone charger but even the cheapest rechargeable battery pack put it to shame.
 
ThunderSkunk said:
Energy research that is not limited to technologies made popular in the 1800s I find frivolous, pointless, wasteful, and hostile to the established, accepted power structures that define this country and the world by extension. Coal and petroleum have served us well and will continue to do so. These other avenues are incredibly offensive to me and my interests, and prompt me to write and donate to congressmen dedicated to defunding and/or outright banning these hostile, subversive, unpatriotic, and frankly, un-American technologies.
Click to expand...

Are you running an oil well? Because you sure sound like you do.
 
wizard said:
Many things can be used successfully in fuel cell systems. You could build a fuel cell that runs on whisky if you wanted too. As for the water you will need to take your Mac for a walk so that it can take a pee just like the family dog.
Click to expand...

Of course any impurities in the fuel (other than hydrogen) will decrease the life of the fuel cell. If you used whiskey, your fuel cell probably wouldn't last a month.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back