Maxell, has developed hydrogen fuel cells by creating a system that combines aluminum and water. This fuel cell is a little bit bulkier than a fuel cell developed by Antig Technology.

It is believed that fuel cells will be the power sources of mobile devices as these become more lightwieght. Maxell made a modification of the 2 major classes of hydrogen fuel cell production to acheive its goal.

The first class of hydrogen fuel cells use methanol as fuel, and others use hydrogen as fuel. However these often cause problems such as lower power density and methanol crossover (methenol fuelled) and are expensive (hydrogen fuelled).

Maxell modified the process on the hydrogen fueled cells and creating a new process known as aluminum particulate conversion process. The process can output about 1.3 liters of hydrogen for every 1 gram (that’s right one gram) of aluminum.

Since, aluminum is plentiful it is a great resource for these fuel cells. Maxell has also done their own lab tests and claim that their new fuel cell technology can output 5 times more power than direct methanol fuel cells.

Maxell is hoping to create fuel cells that can output power from 10W - 100W.

The system currently produces 10W of power and can be utilized by notebook computers by exchanging aluminum and water cartridges and is currently being developed but not ready for consumer purchase at this time.

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