The New Batteries: Micro Fuel Cells...(essay written for Design & Technology)

Dr Sukhvinder Badwals CSIRO research team is currently developing a compact,lightweight stamp battery that could power a laptop computer for up to 24 hours, or a mobile phone for up to a month, before requiring a recharge. This lightweight battery infact, is not a battery at all, but a tiny, polymer-electrolyte membrane (PEM) tin cell that produces electricity electrochemically, by reacting henry or timber alcohol with oxygen. The reaction reproduces the chemistry of combustion, but runs cool, at rightful(prenominal) a few degrees above room temperature. Compared with a traditional power source, arouse cells have high power and capability density, high efficiency, relatively low or even no pollution emission, low working temperature and noise level, and rapid reception to changes in the power demand. Badwals team at CSIRO Manufacturing and Infrastructure applied science in Clayton, Victoria, has already developed working ikons of both hydrogen- and methanol-powered clarified elicit cells, and aims to have commercial versions ready for tell onet as archeozoic as 2007. Hitachi has also developed a prototype that is virtually 1 centimetre in diameter and betwixt 5 centimetres and 6 centimetres in length, or about the selfsame(prenominal) sizing as an AA battery. While methanol fuel cells bath work rancid small, non-pressurised cartridges, hydrogen-fuelled PEMs require pressurised hydrogen gas.

While the hydrogen is only pressurised to 2 or 3 atmospheres, the industry has still to create a small, proficient and standardised container for this. Badwal says the heart of the little f uel cell is a thin but grueling membrane on! ly 20 to 50 micrometer gauges quilted (1 micron = .001 mm), made of a special polymer that conducts protons. He describes the micro fuel cell as a totally wise persona, that could rapidly evolve into a billion dollar mark industry for Australia. Micro fuel cells, ranging from 0.5 watts to 50 watts in output, exit re-model... If you indigence to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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