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A crude layout of the cell phone's power systems from Samsung.  (Source: Samsung)
Samsung reveals that water powered cell phones may be just years away

Samsung is a major player in the cell phone industry. Two major issues with today’s cell phones are battery life and charge times, an inconvenience to users the company is well aware of.  Samsung's plans for a water powered cell phone were recently leaked; no, not that kind of water power -- the modified cell phone design does not use hydroelectricity, but rather breaks apart water and uses the hydrogen obtained for power.

The news follows in line with many advances in the small fuel cell industry.  MTI Micro, a small methanol fuel cell maker, recently announced that they will be rolling out fuel cells for cameras, phone chargers, and more next year.  Samsung has been among the companies investigating fuel cell stacks as battery replacements for laptops.

Samsung's new plans for water-powered cell phones utilize a metal catalyst that becomes a metal hydroxide in a reversible process, yielding hydrogen.  Details on the metal and exact process are scant, so it is hard to ascertain where exactly the process is at in terms of development or exactly how it works.  Likely it operates similarly to Purdue's recently discovered method of high-efficiency hydrogen production using metal, perhaps even using the same method.

While keeping tight lipped on the details, Samsung is making the bold prediction that our cell phones will be running on water by 2010.  Their engineers claim that a working prototype currently provides 10 hours of use.  This, according to Samsung, equates to about 5 days of life in a normal use scenario.  The engineers say that they are modifying the phone to make it easy to be able to top up on the go (drinking fountain anyone?).

The idea of fast free power for your cell phone is certainly an exciting one.  If Samsung can beat its competitors to market with a cell phone "battery" that in theory never dies, it certainly will be in an advantageous position.  Now if they can only work on making sure you always get a signal.

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Cell phones running on water, are you nuts???
By Mudvillager on 4/21/2008 9:00:17 AM , Rating: 2
This will certainly make ordinary consumers raise an eyebrow or two.




RE: Cell phones running on water, are you nuts???
By GreenEnvt on 4/21/2008 9:05:04 AM , Rating: 5
"It said the battery was low so I dropped it in the toilet to charge it up, now it's totally dead!, WTF?"


By Master Kenobi (blog) on 4/21/2008 9:13:25 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
"It said the battery was low so I dropped it in the toilet to charge it up, now it's totally dead!, WTF?"

That might be funny if I can't already see that support call coming in weekly.


RE: Cell phones running on water, are you nuts???
By Shawn5961 on 4/21/2008 9:26:08 AM , Rating: 1
Well, all I can say is good luck if your battery starts to die mid phone call.

"Hang on, my battery is about to die, let me fill my phone up quick."


By wushuktl on 4/21/2008 9:45:51 AM , Rating: 2
boo hoo hang up fill it up and call back. not really the end of the world is it?


RE: Cell phones running on water, are you nuts???
By oTAL (blog) on 4/21/2008 10:12:57 AM , Rating: 5
just spit on it dude... it may be enough for a couple more minutes! ;)


By FITCamaro on 4/21/2008 10:50:12 AM , Rating: 5
"Hold on honey I need to recharge the phone."

*zip....water flowing*

"Dear are you pissing into your cell phone?"


By FITCamaro on 4/21/2008 10:51:10 AM , Rating: 2
Sad thing is you could see that happening.


By SavagePotato on 4/21/2008 5:26:28 PM , Rating: 1
I can see a more likely problem. People that live in cold climates leaving the phone in the car overnight, or while in a store.

Exploding frozen cellphone water tank, awesome. I can see so many idiots doing this and calling in to bitch because their phone just popped.


Really?
By guacamojo on 4/21/2008 10:17:38 AM , Rating: 2
And how will "topping off" the phone recharge it? They still need power from somewhere to crack the water, right? Or am I missing something?

So top it off, then plug it in. You'll be ready to go in a jiffy! How exactly is this better than a battery? More capacity?




RE: Really?
By stugatz on 4/21/2008 11:13:18 AM , Rating: 2
It looks like the H20 -> H2 conversion requires Methane (from the diagram) and it doesn't really detail how they convert the H2 Gas into usable electricity to power the cell phone. So I doubt it would be instantaneous battery life after a refill, looks mostly like something you would do when you get back to your house at night after a long day out and not have to put it back onto a charger.


RE: Really?
By Some1ne on 4/21/2008 5:18:01 PM , Rating: 2
Methane? Where did you get that from? The "Me" in the diagram represents an unspecified metallic catalysat. If it stood for methane, then the Me(OH)2 byproduct that is depicted would be CH6O2, meaning that not only does the reaction successfully extract hydrogen from water, but it also produces self-oxidizing hydrocarbons. Now that would be a breakthrough, a fuel-cell that runs on water and yeilds both hydrogen for producing electricity and combustible hydrocarbons for your car.


RE: Really?
By geddarkstorm on 4/21/2008 11:52:42 AM , Rating: 2
This is supposed to be a battery? If so, perhaps they just apply electricity to split the Me(OH)2 back into methane and water. So you would recharge it at the wall like any phone?

Batteries store energy, they don't make it, so if this is a battery it shouldn't be generating electricity, just holding it in a stored chemical form. Hard to say what they are up to though--the diagram is pretty vague.


RE: Really?
By geddarkstorm on 4/21/2008 11:54:43 AM , Rating: 2
Ohhh, no, the Me isn't methane, it's metal. I think anyways, after reading the article closer.


Unfortunate verb
By dgouldin on 4/21/2008 9:42:56 AM , Rating: 5
"Samsung's plans for a water powered cell phone were recently leaked"

Sounds like they need new plans. Nobody wants a leaky water-powered phone.




RE: Unfortunate verb
By nugundam93 on 4/21/2008 10:13:32 AM , Rating: 2
hahahahaha nice use of a pun. :D


lol, wut?
By CryptoQuick on 4/21/2008 2:29:11 PM , Rating: 1
It's a methanol fuel cell, that's what they mean by Me(OH); they're using a DMFC, Mick.
DMFCs consume water at the anode, along with methanol. This is nothing new.
Come on, buddy, your sensationalist headlines are starting to give us headaches.




RE: lol, wut?
By JediJeb on 4/21/2008 6:15:56 PM , Rating: 3
Actually MeOH is methanol's abbreviation, not Me(OH)2, which is what is in the diagram. Me(OH)2 would be a metal hydroxide and with the 2 at the end it would seem to mean it is a group IIa metal ( Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba or Ra) or possibly one of the Transition metals as some of those can also have a +2 charge on them which makes use of the 2 (OH) groups which have a -1 charge. This would be different from the Methanol cell mentioned some days back. If you can form the hydroxide from the metal and water you release H2 to power a fuel cell, then I believe they are using some of the power from the fuel cell to convert the metal hydroxide back to metal to start the process over again.


Another garbage sensationalist headline.
By 91TTZ on 4/21/2008 6:09:05 PM , Rating: 2
Does Dailytech even bother to check its facts or even proofread? Or does it blindly churn out sensational articles governed only by the dreams of gullible high school and college kids?

Can Dailytech explain how a methanol fuel cell is powered by water? Water does not provide power. Water is not an energy source.




By JediJeb on 4/22/2008 4:02:51 PM , Rating: 2
Do people even read the article, there is no mention of a methanol fuel cell, it is a hydrogen fuel cell what gets its hydrogen from breaking down water.


Where'd you get the picture?
By EODetroit on 4/21/2008 9:57:03 AM , Rating: 2
Couldn't have been from my buddy's web site, picture quality is too good! http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~stanchfi/drink/index.ht...




Excellent!
By Creig on 4/21/2008 11:48:49 AM , Rating: 2
Now you can have a cellphone, canteen and squirt gun all in one!