14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung has filed a patent in September last year, that has been published last week. The patent regards the use of hydrogen fuel cells for powering mobile phones.
The 'Multi-layered thin film hydrogen fuel cell system' is meant to provide an alternative to the current fuel cell systems that have low efficiency in hydrogen storage and are generally too large to fit in one of today's mobile phones.
Considering Samsung's recently released devices that are so slim that you can barely see them anymore, including such a fuel cell system would be virtually impossible.
The patent regards a multi-layered thin film hydrogen fuel cell system that is applicable as a power supplying device like a battery or portable electric generator for a mobile phone, PDA or other portable devices. Several important companies are giving this matter a lot of thought, investing money into fuel cells and aiming to push the technology further to a point where it can easily be adopted and included in products. In the meantime, we have yet to see how long it takes them to actually make use of this technology and roll it out on the market.
Here's what the abstract includes : According to an aspect of the invention for realizing the object, there is provided a multi-layered thin film hydrogen fuel cell system using hydrogen carbon compound as fuel, including: a reformer comprising a flow path formed at a side of a substrate and a catalyst in the flow path to reform a fuel into hydrogen; a cell for generating current using the hydrogen from the reformer, the cell comprising a pair of first and second substrates covering the substrate of the reformer, the first substrate disposed at the side of the reformer, and a Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) disposed between the pairs of substrates with a catalyst formed thereon; and a combustor for burning remaining fuel gas to generate heat, the combustor comprising a substrate disposed at an outer side of the second substrate of the cell and a flow path formed in the substrate with a catalyst formed thereon.