Samsung powers ahead with fuel cell tech

Will it set the world on fire?

By James Sherwood • Get more from this author

13th August 2007 15:05 GMT

If you're worried about potentially flammable notebook batteries, or perhaps if you aren't, then have you considered a fuel cell-powered laptop? Samsung has unveiled its latest prototype 'battery', which it claims can run for up to eight hours a day for one month, without any recharge.

The Direct Methanol Fuel Cell, recently showed off on a Q35 Samsung laptop in Korea, provides an energy density of 650 Watt hours/L, with total energy storage of 12,000Wh.

Samsung has talked up its fuel cell designs for consumer electronics for some time already, but it claims this latest design also overcomes previous noise problems associated with fuel cells. The design is still undergoing further safety tests, but could become available by the end of 2007. A retail price is yet to be confirmed.

In 2005, the manufacturer said a prototype notebook-orientated fuel cell could squeeze 200Wh out of each litre of fuel it consumed, which it claimed outstripped the performance of rival fuel cell designs from the likes of Toshiba and NEC.

One analyst has already said that fuel cell technology is on the brink of becoming a very promising option for the future, once final engineering work has been completed on the technology.