Computer chips double in speed every two years. The typical personal computer's storage capacity has expanded 36,000 times since 1989. Internet-connection speeds climb at about 50% a year.But the batteries that run these devices can't keep up. Their power is rising at only about 10% a year. They hold a charge for maddeningly short periods that have, at one time or another, frustrated every laptop-, cellphone- or Blackberry-toting road warrior. In airport waiting areas, freeloaders routinely rush to the outlets to recharge their gadgets for the next leg of the trip.
"We are a slave to the battery world," says Matt Nichols of Microvision Inc., a Redmond, Wash., company that is developing miniature projectors that can work with iPods.
The last real breakthrough in the field came in 1991, when Sony Corp. introduced rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Since then, battery technology gains have been mostly incremental.
The problem is that batteries are chemical devices with an anode that gives up electrons and a cathode that receives them, separated by an electrolyte. When the anode has given up most of its electrons, it needs to be recharged.
Make the anode and cathode bigger, and the battery becomes heavier. You could carry around an auto battery to keep your iPhone charged longer, but you couldn't carry it very long. Make batteries smaller, on the other hand, and they don't last as long. Battery designers constantly work with device makers to fine-tune the weight/time trade-off, but they can't change the basic physics.
Lately, some power engineers are pressing ahead with an alternative -- a hybrid technology based on a fuel cell that recharges a small battery whenever it gets low. Fuel cells are a kind of miniature power-generation plant that uses a catalyst to transform a gas (think vapor, not gasoline) into electricity. One advantage is that the fuel cell can be recharged with a portable gas canister, rather than requiring access to a wall outlet for recharging.
Fuel cells create electricity through the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, producing water as a byproduct. Historically, fuel cells used hydrogen as their fuel. But hydrogen isn't widely available, and it's expensive to build the tanks needed to carry it around. Increasingly, fuel-cell designers have focused on using other gases as an alternative. Some designs depend on methanol. Others use butane, the familiar fuel for cigarette lighters, which has more energy per ounce than methanol. Propane is used in some larger systems.
Martin Schmidt, associate provost at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has worked on fuel cells, says: "The fundamental premise is that batteries have a limit as to how much energy you can store per unit of weight. The energy in chemical fuels is much higher." Mr. Schmidt says that he is starting to see fuel cells based on semiconductor-like miniaturization technology that look likely to be viable products.
The slow pace of battery improvement isn't for lack of trying. The battery market invests heavily in improvement, and venture capitalists have thrown millions at start-ups promising to power everything from fork-lifts to heart-pumps with small, safe, long-lasting portable power.
Fuel-cell makers hope their devices will soon begin to grab some of the $71 billion-a-year world-wide battery market, which is growing 4.8% annually, according to Cleveland market researcher Freedonia Group. Rechargeable batteries account for two-thirds of the market.
Larger fuel cells that use hydrogen have also figured into the quest for gasoline-free cars. But the application of the technology in portable electronics may well arrive sooner.
Lilliputian Systems Inc., a well-funded, Wilmington, Mass., start-up with a technique for making a ceramic fuel cell, is showing potential customers a butane-fired, matchbook-sized prototype that it says will be ready for shipment late next year. Mechanical Technology Inc., of Albany, N.Y., says its MTI Micro Fuel Cells Inc. unit is also on track to bring its Mobion fuel cell to market next year, despite some well-publicized financial problems and the dissolution of a highly touted agreement with battery maker Duracell, a unit of Procter & Gamble Co.
In Japan, Toshiba Corp. promises to start selling a cellphone powered by a fuel cell in next year's first quarter. But, as is often the case with all things fuel-cell related, that's a delay from its forecasts when it unveiled a prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
Portable fuel-cell technology may get an assist from the military, which has a more urgent need than frustrated iPhone users. Earlier this month, the Department of Defense gave a $1 million prize to DuPont Co. and Germany's SFC Smart Fuel Cell AG, for winning a contest to develop the best wearable power system.
SFC specializes in larger systems designed to replace gasoline-powered generators in RVs and boats. The Army hopes that further development of their wearable system prototypes will lead to nine-pound fuel-cell packs that soldiers can carry providing several days of power for their night-vision scopes, communications and global-positioning-system devices. Such a fuel cell could provide as much power as a 30-pound battery.
"These systems show great promise" for reducing the loads troops carry, says William Rees Jr., deputy under secretary for defense laboratories and basic sciences.
Fuel-cell makers' latest optimism leads observers to raise a wary eyebrow. Asian battery-makers in particular have repeatedly shown fuel-cells powering prototype cellphones at trade shows but failed to deliver anticipated products. In 2005, both of Japan's two biggest carriers, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI promised to be marketing them in 2007. In 2004, Hitachi Ltd. and Toshiba each demonstrated prototypes they promised would be on the market in 2006. In 2004, Finnish-handset-maker Nokia said it anticipated making fuel-cell-powered phones in a couple of years, but in 2006, it publicly dropped the plan, saying the technology wasn't ready for deployment.
"This technology has perennially been 18 months away," says Walter Thornton, vice president, supply chain, for Igo Inc., a Scottsdale, Ariz., maker of power adapters who has been talking to a number of prospective suppliers. But Mr. Thornton says: "Now, we're actually 18 months away."
Mr. Thornton anticipates that Igo would market a fuel-cell charger, priced at $199, and based on the Lilliputian system. That's a lot more than the $59 or so it now costs for a backup lithium-ion battery. But the fuel-cell charger would be half the weight and wouldn't require finding a plug, eliminating the need to carry converters when traveling overseas or hunting for electricity outlets. Replacement gas cartridges, which would last two to four weeks for typical cellphone users, would cost $3.99 or so, he says.
It isn't clear what percentage of battery users will opt for carrying fuel cartridges and refilling their phones as an alternative to recharging them. Lilliputian says that the International Civil Aviation Organization allows butane cartridges to be carried onto planes. Methanol cartridges have also been approved.
Such gas-powered fuel cells operate at very high internal temperatures. Lilliputian's chief technology officer, Samuel Schaevitz, says the fuel cell's process runs at 700 degrees Celsius, which is red hot.
"The challenge is to keep it insulated," he says. Lilliputian builds its tiny fuel cell on a semiconductor production line, and creates a vacuum chamber in which the reaction takes place. The system includes a tiny, barely audible air pump, and from the outside it feels cooler than skin temperature.
Lilliputian plans to develop a fuel-cell system for later delivery that could replace the battery in a laptop and run it for up to 40 hours before the fuel cartridge needs to be replaced.
At least initially, fuel cells will cost more than batteries, which may make them a tough sell, as money becomes tight in a world-wide recession.
If fuel cells finally deliver on their promise, there's little doubt they'll find a market.
In the last ten years, "there's been hundreds of millions of dollars spent on research and development," says Russell Siegelman of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, which started backing Lilliputian in 2002. "The response is uniformly, if you can build it, we want it."
