Speakers to Highlight Micro Fuel Cell Advances at Portable Power Conference

Sep 7, 2005 3:28 PM
By David Morrison, Editor, PETech

After years of development, micro fuel cells appear poised for commercialization and eager to find their place alongside batteries in portable applications. Evidence of their progress toward these goals will be presented at the Portable Power 2005 Conference and Expo, which will be held September 18-21 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Dr. Fumio Ueno, a technology executive at Toshiba, and Dr. William P. Acker, CEO of MTI MicroFuel Cells, will be among those discussing the latest advances in micro fuel cell technology in the Wednesday morning session, “Portable Fuel Cells: New Technologies and Implementation Challenges.”

Dr. Ueno, the technology executive in the Display Devices and Components Control Center at Toshiba, will deliver a presentation titled, "Recent Developments in Micro Fuel Cells." Ueno will talk about the passive-type direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) power systems under development at Toshiba. His talk will include details on a system for wearable audio devices and a standalone cell phone charger.

In addition, Ueno will describe a cell phone with a built-in DMFC power unit that is being jointly developed with KDDI Technologies, a Japanese telecommunications carrier. For more information on this presentation, see www.toshiba.com/taec/press/dmfc_05_286.shtml.

In his talk, Dr. Acker will present an overview of MTI Micro’s Mobion technology and the company’s market entry strategy. Acker also will discuss micro fuel cell trends as a power solution to batteries for military and consumer portable applications. For more information, see www.mtimicrofuelcells.com.

Other speakers in this portable fuel cell session (general session 3) include Takafumi Sarat, R&D project leader at Seiko Instruments, whose talk is titled, “Development of Passive Type Micro PEFC Using Chemical Hydrides,” and Norm Allen, COO of UltraCell, who will discuss, “Electrical Energy Storage & Power Management.” Also presenting in this session are Go Young Moon, Ph.D., PL/principal research engineer at LG Chem/Research Park, who will describe a “DFMC System for IT Device Applications.” Finally, a joint talk by David W. Dorheim, president and CEO of Neah Power Systems, and Jerry Hallmark, manager of the Energy Technology Labs at Motorola Labs will address, “Alternative Approaches for DMFC Design: Silicon-Based Systems.”

In addition to presentations on fuel cell developments, the conference includes talks on battery technologies, portable power electronics, portable applications, and portable power market factors. For additional information on the conference and exposition, visit www.portablepower2005.com.

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