Aquafairy!?
NTT DoCoMo and Aquafairy to Develop Micro Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell for FOMA Handsets
WebWire, TOKYO, JAPAN, July 14, 2006 — NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and Aquafairy Co. announced today that they agreed to jointly develop a micro fuel cell for 3G FOMA…..
The Aquafairy(tm)? Ri-i-ight…
DoCoMo is just about the largest mobile phone company on the planet, and NOBODY bothers to proofread the “Aquafairy” company/product name for insanity. Sheesh. Also note that the Aquafairy device looks larger and heavier than the cellphone it is supposed to power.
Sure, sure, it’s a prototype and I’m sure it will much cheaper using the new polymer fuel cell rather than the expensive regular fuel cells …. but DAMN that Aquafairy looks clunky.
UPDATE: The Aquafairy “catalyst” is just a misnamed fuel and works as such.
1. Water is injected into a fuel cartridge where a catalyst converts it into hydrogen. 2. Hydrogen is channeled to the anode in the power unit. 3. The hydrogen is separated into ions and electrons. 4. The electrons flow from the anode to the cathode through an external circuit, producing electricity. 5. At the cathode, the hydrogen ions and electrons combine with oxygen to produce water.
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July 21st, 2006 at 2:40 am
The press material implies that the FUEL is water converted to hydrogen by a magic catalyst. How does that work?? Where does the energy come from? Where does the oxygen go?
There is a web site, Aquafairy.com, that promotes a cartoon character, Aquafairy.
July 21st, 2006 at 8:03 am
Ahhhh, that is just crappy Japanese engrish. From the diagrams, the Aquafairy is just standard fuel cell that uses a vague “catalyst” which just misnamed fuel and works as such. Japanese think that being vague as being clever–When translated this sounds insane doesn’t it?
July 21st, 2006 at 8:51 am
I originally saw this item as part of the Fuel Cell Works newsletter. Manny, the editor, says he
checked it carefully before he posted it. He thinks it is connected to the experiment by Prof. Abu-Omar, who uses a catalyst to produce hydrogen from water and *organosilanes*.
Jour. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 11938-11939.
I don’t know if this is what ‘Aquafairy’ is actually doing, but they do need a “fuel” in addition
to a “catalyst”. I suggested metallic sodium and water — I seem to remember my high
chemistry class.
July 21st, 2006 at 10:11 am
A literal translation of the mystery “catalyst” is “hydrogen occurrence medicine” hee, hee. Maybe the “hydrogen occurrence medicine” is a high-purity hydrogen peroxide (which is sometimes used as rocket fuel).
Anyway, this is some sort of PEFC, Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell (Sulfonated Polyimide sulfonic oxidation poly-ether electrolyte membrane ). Since 2002 METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) dumping money in polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) system demonstration projects
July 21st, 2006 at 10:22 am
Hydrogen peroxide, of course, is an *oxidizer*, not a fuel, and would produce O2 instead of H2.
We do fuel cell stuff here at UCLA as well. Send a grant.
LAT
July 21st, 2006 at 10:29 am
—-> *oxidizer*
D’oh!
—->“We do fuel cell stuff here at UCLA as well. Send a grant.”
Sure! Your Japanese check is in the mail, hee, hee.
(Hint: Japanese checks are don’t exist in real life—few Japanese have ever seen a check.)
July 21st, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Turns up several sites that say that water in a PEFC fuel cell is only for cooling, and that they run off “hydrogen fuels”.
The PEFC can operate on reformed hydrocarbon fuels.
The electrode reactions in the PEFC are analogous to those in the PAFC. Hydrogen from the fuel gas stream is consumed at the anode, yielding electrons to the anode and producing hydrogen ions which enter the electrolyte. At the cathode, oxygen combines with electrons from the cathode and hydrogen ions from the electrolyte to produce water. The water does not dissolve in the electrolyte and is, instead,
rejected from the back of the cathode into the oxidant gas stream. As the PEFC operates at about 175 °F (80 °C), the water is produced as liquid water and is
carried out of the fuel cell by excess oxidant flow.
A liquid cooling system is required. This means that there is pure water inside the cells. Ballard has tested the fuel cell at below freezing temperatures and there was no damage to the stack. It appears that the stack coolant must be drained after shutdown. I do not know what repeated freeze-thaw cycling would do to the hydrated stack even if drained.
July 21st, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Part of my last post disappeared, supposed to say…
A quick google turns up several…
July 21st, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Nathan, sorry that part of your last post disappeared. The WordPress software has been having glitches with the comment functions for 3 days now. Yes, see how the PEFC type fuel cell logically would need some kind of hydrogen fuel to operate.
However, the text the above clearly states “Water is injected into a fuel cartridge where a catalyst converts it into hydrogen.” Weird hey? The diagram above and the press releases calling literally a “Hydrogen generating agent”. Something is fishy.
August 18th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Yep, it just uses a different, unnamed “fuel”.