"Now I can have a phone that lasts weeks or months that I used to be able to run for a couple of days or sometimes just one day," said Bob Hockaday, chief scientist at Manhattan Scientifics, which is based in New York City. "So it gives you a big boost in range or capacity of how far and what you can do with the device."
In the company's research center in a Los Alamos, N.M., industrial park not far from the laboratory birthplace of the atomic bomb, Hockaday is developing what may be the world's smallest energy source.
Unlike a battery — a sealed device that stores electrical energy — a micro-fuel cell is an open device. It uses a replenishable source of energy, such as methanol or natural gas, and converts it to electricity.
Here's how it works: A fuel cell has an electrode on either side, and an electrolyte in the middle. Hydrogen-rich fuel and oxygen are broken down. The resulting product is an electrical current, thanks to electrons freed from the hydrogen and water from the combination of hydrogen ions and oxygen.
Micro-fuel cells are also being developed for consumer products such as laptops, smoke alarms and calculators.
From Cars to Cell Phones
The fuel cell is not a new technology. Car manufacturers have been developing them for years.
But Hockaday said he saw new opportunities in the consumer electronics market, because today's lithium batteries just don't hold up.
"We have this feeling of 'battery anxiety,' the feeling that it's just not going to last," Hockaday said. "And a lot of us have had the experience. For some reason we haven't charged it, or it's the end of the day. … The phone just dies on you."
Manhattan Scientifics decided to focus on smaller gadgets, he said.
"Those are the markets that are willing to pay for this sort of new, innovative device that gives you something more than you already have," Hockaday said. "And the fuel cell can deliver this … something more."
How Soon?
Researchers at SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., are also developing micro-fuel cells. They predict the devices will outpace lithium batteries as consumers rely more and more on cell phones and other mobile devices.
"We will see some improvements in batteries over the next five, 10 years — maybe doubling in energy," SRI International's Subash Nurang said. "But that is still much, much less than what the consumers need in the future."
As advanced, always-on devices become more pervasive, demand for fuel cells should rise, Nurang said, since traditional batteries "will not be able keep up with what the consumers want."
But analysts say it's an uphill climb. Fuel cells hold great potential, but today the technology is confined to the lab.
David Kurzman, an analyst with H.C. Wainwright, said it will be four to five years before consumers begin to see a benefit.
"It's going to be really tough because they've got to unseat the incumbent battery technologies" like relatively inexpensive lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries, Kurzman said.
"They are very well-entrenched," he said. "So being able to unseat that is going to be an issue of — not only of distribution — but of getting the cost down and getting the user time substantially longer than what they can currently do today." 
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