Toshiba powers its MP3-players with methanol

Toshiba has announced a new and quite interesting battery technology that uses fuel cells called DMFC (direct methanol fuel cell). It has announced that it is working on two prototypes using this technology which is suppose to be used with its media players, one for flashmemory based models while the other is for harddrive based models. The pros with these batteries are that they can store a lot of power, the HDD-version can store up to 300mW, which should be enough to power a harddrive based MP3-player for more than 60 hours. However the thought of carrying around methanol in you pocket is a bit disturbing.

“The 100mW unit, 23x75x10mm in size, can power flash-based players for approximately 35 hours on a single 3.5ml charge of concentrated methanol, claims Toshiba. The 300mW unit is 60x75x10mm in size and delivers sufficient power to keep an HDD-based audio player running for approximately 60 hours on a single 10ml charge, said the company.”

Toshiba claims it will be ready to launch products using DMFC batteries after 2007 and we sincerely hope that we won’t have any problems with leakage and such. But then 60 hours is hardly something to complain about.

Source: DigiTimes