Water-powered phones by 2010

By Damian Koh on 21 April 2008

Samsung has developed a new mobile phone battery which is powered by water and aims to bring this battery to the market by 2010.

When the handset is switched on the reaction between metal and water in the phone will produce hydrogen gas. This is then channeled to the fuel cell where it reacts with oxygen in the air to generate power.

According to Oh Yong-soo, vice president of Samsung Electronics Mechanics' research centre, the new battery could last for up to 10 hours, adding that based on four hours of use daily on average, the hydrogen cartridge will have to be replaced about every five days.

The next development would then be to eliminate the hydrogen cartridge altogether and to rely only on water.

Topics: battery, hydrogen, mobile phone, power, samsung, water, 2010, cartridge, hour, phone

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Comments (7)

  • Darrn commented on 19/05/2008 14:30 Report abuse

    (That post looks really crazy with the paragraph breaks stripped, sorry. It made a lot more sense the way I'd originally typed it.)

  • Darrn commented on 19/05/2008 14:04 Report abuse

    We already have disposable batteries that have to be replaced every few days. Waste of good metal. Why use a chemical reaction to generate hydrogen, then turn the hydrogen into electricity; when you can use a chemical reaction to generate electricity directly? Whatever happened to the portable fuel cells that ran on alcohol?

  • tommy commented on 26/04/2008 16:36 Report abuse

    but( the hydrogen cartridge will have to be replaced about every five days) and (the new battery could last for up to 10 hours, adding that based on four hours of use daily) hmm. "Are you sure this item isn't a left-over from April 1st?" i dont think so!

  • RWB commented on 24/04/2008 11:45 Report abuse

    Are you sure this item isn't a left-over from April 1st? Where is the benefit of a fuel cell with disposable cartridges, compared to existing rechargeable batteries? And no, I don't believe they can run anything on just water, that is a popular fiction.

  • kosisikeleli commented on 22/04/2008 16:49 Report abuse

    @skifri there's no scam, a chemical reaction will split water into hydrogen and water, then that'll be fed to a fuel cell to make electricity.

  • skifri commented on 22/04/2008 13:52 Report abuse

    Does anyone realize how silly this article is or know anything about chemistry/physics? Fuel Cells react oxygen with hydrogen to make...WATER. What samsung is proposing is using water, to make hyrogen and oxygen... then using this hydrogen and oxygen to make water...all contained in one little battery! What a marketing SCAM!(perpetual motion machine anyone?!?!) If you dont know what I mean, look up "perpetual motion machine" on wikipedia.

  • ssharwood commented on 21/04/2008 14:54 Report abuse

    This is yet another hydrogen fuel cell beatup. Toshiba has been promising this for laptops since about 2004. Where are they? One reason is that airlines will not abide hydrogen canisters. This will not happen!

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