SAIT has announced a small methanol fuel cell. The target application is
recharging cell phones, PDAs, and other portable devices. They claim it
can charge the battery in a typical portable device 200 consecutive
times without needing to load a new $1 methanol cartridge. That sounds
like more than enough power for a small robot. Perhaps robot hobbyists
will be experimenting with these things before too long. For more see
the Chosun
Biz story or Daily Tech
story (w/photo). The only downside is that, like most portable fuel
cell devices we’ve reported on in the last five years, this one is
still “2-3 years” from general availability. See also our previous
stories on Fujitsu’s micro
methanol fuel cell and why methanol fuel cells
largely remain vaporware. On a more positive note, we’ve also
reported on inexpensive
hydrogen fuel cells that are available now for robot experimenters
and on a real fuel cell
powered homebrew robot.