As a future fuel source, hydrogen inspires a lot of hope — and more than a little wariness. But one New Jersey startup has developed a hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology for portable devices that it’s promising can be as safe and even longer-lasting than today’s batteries.
Millennium Cell of Eatontown, N.J. has developed a proprietary process that uses sodium borohydride — a chemical synthesized from borax, a mineral commonly found in laundry detergents — to produce hydrogen. Stored in its liquid form, the sodium borohydride solution is passed through a chamber containing a proprietary catalyst, and hydrogen is released as needed. Millennium Cell doesn’t make the actual fuel cells, but instead partners with different fuel cell manufacturers that license its system.
Debuted at a recent trade show, Millennium’s “hydrogen on demand” process differs from most other fuel cell technologies geared toward portable devices. Typically, they rely on methanol (also known as methyl alcohol, or wood alcohol), which is considered more stable, but less powerful, than compressed hydrogen. Millennium sidesteps the issue of stability by storing its fuel in the form of the stable and non-explosive sodium borohydride solution, and converting it to hydrogen as needed.
Millennium isn’t the only company to move beyond methanol as a fuel choice. New York City-based rival Medis Technologies utilizes a proprietary sodium borohydride chemistry to run its portable Power Pack. Nevertheless, fuel-cell technology is considered to be moving forward only slowly, as would-be developers, including some of the world’s biggest electronics makers, wrestle with issues of size, energy density, and even federal aviation regulations, which could keep such power sources off planes. In this atmosphere, the use of hydrogen, some feel, might help overcome existing challenges and propel the market forward.
Walter Nasdio, managing director for Ardour Capital Investments, a New York City broker-dealer focused on the energy sector, says Millennium’s technology “stacks up well” against methanol-driven competitors in terms of energy density and utility.
“Methanol got a toehold, and methanol is cheap,” Nasdio says. “But there are issues with handling it and putting it on planes.” Concerns abound that flammable liquid methanol will cause safety issues if spilled, and therefore might not be allowed on airplanes for a long time to come.
As a replacement for batteries, fuel cells are looked toward as a longer-lasting power source for laptops and cellphones, which proponents say is needed to run today’s more-demanding mobile devices.
“There’s a market disconnect in portable electronics,” says Chris McDougall, program manager of portable electronics power for the Dow Ventures Group, the business unit of Dow Chemical, which recently invested in Millennium Cell. “Electronics are wanting longer and longer run times and wanting more and more power.”
Today’s batteries, he says, just can’t keep up. A typical rechargeable laptop battery (such as Sony laptop battery) will provide two to four hours of AC-free power. Meanwhile, lithium ion and nickel metal hydride batteries for cellphones offer as little as an hour and a half of talk time, depending on the model. As PCs and other mobile devices incorporate more power-draining features — faster processors for better graphics and faster run rates — conventional batteries are likely to hit a wall.
Dow Chemical sees potential in Millennium’s approach. The giant chemical company recently bought a three-percent equity stake in the Millennium Cell, with the option to buy up to 19.9 percent of the company. Dow’s McDougall says that Millennium has differentiated itself from its competitors in the fuel-cell development arena in the way it “utilizes hydrogen fuel.” Millennium is Dow’s only public investment in the fuel-cell market to date.
The prototype of the fuel cell that Millennium Cell showcased at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco in March is an external unit that’s just six millimeters thick, but was reportedly able to provide only three hours of charge for a laptop such as VGP-BPS3 and VGP-BPS5– not much more than some batteries today. But within a couple of years, Millennium’s makers expect their fuel cell to provide eight hours of power and cost about as much as a standard secondary laptop battery (around $ 150).
Millennium’s chemical agent, sodium borohydride, is a synthetic compound produced from sodium metal and borax, a mineral often found in dried-up seabeds — with plentiful reserves in the United States, making it a cost-effective fuel, according to John D. Giolli, acting CFO of Millennium Cell.
Along with being “10 times as energy rich as lithium,” currently used to power lithium ion batteries, and slightly more powerful than methanol, Giolli says his Hydrogen on Demand system limits the need for platinum, which is typically used as a catalyst in methanol fuel-cell reactions, and which could drive up the costs of fuel cells when they come to market.
Hydrogen has been the fuel of choice for larger fuel cell systems, like the ones currently being developed to power automobiles some day; but until recently it has not been a popular choice for smaller power sources because of its storage needs.