Sharper Fuel Cells

Sharp, in collaboration with MIT have announced an improved fuel cell technology that’s claimed to have the highest power density to date. Fuel cells have been around for yonks and basically convert chemical energy into electrical energy. It’s a sort of reverse electrolysis process (where water can be turned into hydrogen and oxygen by passing a current through it), using exotic materials that act as catalysts. In this case methanol is the fuel source. It’s a lot safer, cheaper and easier to transport than Hydrogen, which has been a popular choice with fuel cell developers in the past.

Sharp’s Direct to Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) prototypes are small enough to be used inside most gadgets, from mobile phones and GPS receivers to personal stereos and cameras and they say they’ll last around as long as lithium ion rechargeable batteries (3 – 5 years). Read More »

Sharp and Thin

Congrats to Sharp for producing what is claimed to be the world’s thinnest liquid crystal display. Most of us are blissfully unaware that there’s a right old battle going on in the world of LCD panel manufacturing, to see who can make the thinnest screens, and until last week that honour belonged to AU Optronics, with a screen just 0.69mm thick. But now Sharp have taken back the lead with a 2.2–inch panel that measures, wait for it, only 0.68mm. Now this is clearly a big deal for those involved and probably came about as a result of all sorts of clever technical developments but it’s unlikely that 0.01mm is going to make a lot of difference to the rest of us, but it’s nice to know it can be done…