Alcohol powered lappie with green energy isn’t ground-breaking news but Lenovo coming up with a methanol fuel cell laptop is the breaking news today. PolyFuel, a company that develops fuel cell membranes has developed a prototype laptop, the Lenovo T40 ThinkPad, which uses methanol cartridges and a fuel cell as a power source. It actually feeds on direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), in which the methanol is converted into an electricity to run the computer. This helps to refill the exhausted fuel and it is estimated that a single cartridge can breath 10 hours of battery life in to the laptop.
PolyFuel’s prototype battery is slightly larger than the OEM battery for the Lenovo, however it is considerably lighter and currently offers 3x the battery life. There is still no word when they expect these to be to market but they do say that fuel cell powered consumer electronics are feasible within 2-3 years.
Such renewable fuel cell can be made from biodegradable or recyclable material so when it has reached its end of life you won’t need to chuck it in a land fill or a costly hazardous waste processing facility.
