Please switch off. Power supply almost exhausted. Every day millions of mobile phone, palmtop, notebook, portable CD player and camcorder users are driven to fury by this warning. Without a power source, this wonderful new wealth of modern electronics is of no use at all. Yet the mobile and wireless trend still surges on.
Electronic devices can only be portable if they maintain their own, self-sufficient power source.
Disposable or rechargeable batteries are expensive, harmful to the environment and usually do not last long enough. Researchers are thus looking for ever greater urgency for alternatives. Its new means of mobile power supply will be on show at the Hanover fair. Fraunhofer researchers will operate a camcorder using the new fuel cells to illustrate their effectiveness in the low-power segment. A miniature fuel cell with a performance capability of 10W at 8V supplies enough power to run a camcorder.