NEC Develops Smaller Fuel Cell for Notebook PCs

NEC Corp. (Tokyo, Japan) announced the development of a fuel cell with 20% greater power generating efficiency than the PC built-in fuel cell announced on June 30, 2003. A prototype notebook PC incorporating this compact fuel cell has also been produced. The fuel cell features high-power generating efficiency through the use of carbon nano-horns, a kind of carbon nanotube, as electrodes.

The newly developed fuel cell boasts the world's highest output density of 50mW/cm² and the refinement of the packaging technology allowed reduction in size of the fuel cell module by 20% while maintaining sufficient power to drive a notebook PC. The new fuel cell features an average output (maximum output) of 14W (24W), a voltage of 12V, a fuel cell weight (weight of fuel) of 900g (300g), a PC weight of 2kg, PC dimensions of 270mm x 270mm x 40mm, and an operating time of approximately five hours (using 300cc of methanol fuel with a concentration of approximately 10%).

NEC plans to market a notebook PC with a built-in fuel cell by the end of 2004. It also intends to make a notebook PC equipped with an internal fuel cell that offers 40 hours of continuous operation available by the end of 2005.