CEATEC: KDDI's Latest Fuel-Cell Prototype Cellphone Charge in Seconds!!

KDDI had been in co-development with Toshiba and Hitachi since July, 2004 on next-generation fuel cells for use in mobile devices such as cell-phones and the latest prototype cell phone based on a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) made its debut on Tuesday at the KDDI booth at CEATEC show in Japan.

The modified Toshiba T002 handset is being shown by Japanese carrier KDDI as a research and development device and shows some improvements in technology based on previous prototypes, but there's still no word on when a phone based on the technology will be available.

Although, we don’t have any firm dates for commercial availability of this fuel powered device, Japan's biggest newspaper, (Nikkei) reports that Toshiba will begin with mass production of compact direct methanol fuel cells for mobile devices such as mp3 players, smartphones and notebook computers earlier next year!!

Initial pricing is expected to range from ¥10,000 to ¥50,000 (US$104 to $519). The Nikkei said that Toshiba aims to lower the price to several thousand yen after ramping up output. Toshiba is targeting segment sales of ¥100 billion (US$1.037 billion) by fiscal 2015.

Looking back through all these years everything has been improved or been given an extra dimension, everything except the batteries technology and the battery life that basically remains pretty much the same through all these years but now, Toshiba claims it will soon completely supplant the lithium ion batteries commonly used in today's portable electronic devices.

Fuel cells can be thought of as 'refillable' batteries. But unlike a battery, which when exhausted must be recharged or discarded; fuel cells will run continuously, as long as there is fuel available.

Toshiba’s technology allows methanol to be stored at a much higher concentration, and achieves a much smaller fuel tank than before and powers round six hours of talk time while a typical battery in the same handset would provide between 3-4 hours.

As conceived by most consumer electronics manufacturers, many of whom have aggressive fuel cell development programs, the consumer would simply 'pop in' a replacement cartridge of methanol fuel when necessary.

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