Mobile phones and other personal electronics that run on fuel cells instead of conventional batteries came a little closer to reality recently, thanks to an invention by Taiwanese researchers.

The boost toward commercial viability for fuel cells comes courtesy of a new filtering technology developed by a team from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. According to New Scientist magazine, the invention involves a device that filters out byproducts that can reduce the efficiency of "direct methanol" fuel cells (DMFCs). Significantly, the filtering technology does not require extra power.

DMFCs are a promising technology for portable electronics, mainly because methanol does not require complicated catalytic reforming and the gas is much easier to store than that of hydrogen, which requires high pressure or low temperatures. However, DMFCs have been limited in the amount of power they can produce, owing in part to the difficulty of managing the carbon dioxide and other byproducts that are created when the fuel is oxidized.

The National Tsing Hua team has tackled the problem by designing a device that removes the CO2 and other waste products, namely water and methanol vapor, using a passive filtering system. The filter is equipped with about 100 50-micron holes that allow excess CO2 to escape in the atmosphere. The holes are also treated with a water-repelling Teflon coating that wicks the liquid into a collection reservoir without drawing any of the fuel cell's precious power output.

Samsung and Toshiba are among a number of major electronics makers that have shown interest in harnessing DMFCs for powering mobile phones and related products.