The British "Daily Mail" reported this news, and claimed that many industry insiders have confirmed the cooperation between Apple and IntelligentEnergy.
In fact, as early as December 2011, there have been reports that Apple is getting involved in this new battery technology. At that time, Apple applied to the US Patent and Trademark Office for two fuel cell patents. Apple said in its patent application that it will use fuel cells in newer, lighter and smaller notebook computers. Apple believes that fuel cells and the accompanying fuel can bring extremely high energy density, and can support portable electronic devices for days or even weeks without adding fuel.
So what is the fuel cell technology, is it really as magical as Apple claims?
1. The principle of fuel cell
A fuel cell is a power generation device that directly converts chemical energy possessed by fuel into electrical energy. The principle is an electrochemical device with the same composition as a general battery. The single cell is composed of positive and negative electrodes (negative electrode is fuel electrode and positive electrode is oxidant electrode) and electrolyte. The difference is that the active material of a general battery is stored inside the battery, therefore, the battery capacity is limited. The positive and negative electrodes of the fuel cell itself do not contain active materials, but only a catalytic conversion element. Therefore, fuel cells are literally energy conversion machines that convert chemical energy into electrical energy. When the battery is in operation, fuel and oxidant are supplied from outside to react. In principle, as long as the reactants are continuously input and the reaction products are continuously eliminated, the fuel cell can continuously generate electricity.
In fact, the concept of a fuel cell was proposed as early as 1839, but substantial progress was not made until the 1950s. In the 1960s, this battery was successfully applied to the Apollo lunar spaceship. Since the 1960s, hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells have been widely used in the field of aerospace. At present, they have been used in the field of automobiles, but in the field of consumer electronics, they are still a relatively new battery technology.
Since the popularization of smartphones, battery life has become a key technical constraint. A survey by the Japanese smartphone user service company FixYa on the shortcomings of the iPhone shows that the number one is the short battery life, which is as high as 35%. Mobile phone batteries The reason why the endurance cannot change qualitatively lies in the fact that it can only rely on the development of lithium-ion batteries, which are far behind the growth rate of smartphones' demand for batteries. As a pioneer of smart phones, Apple needs fuel cell technology to solve this problem.
Second, the characteristics of fuel cells
Fuel cells have the advantages of high power generation efficiency and less environmental pollution.
The fuel cell directly converts chemical energy into electrical energy through the chemical reaction of fuel and oxidant. There is no intermediate energy conversion link, so the energy conversion efficiency of this power generation method can be as high as 50%. The fuel used can be either natural gas, coal gas and liquefied fuel, or methanol, biogas or even firewood. Different fuels can be used for the fuel cell power generation system according to the specific conditions in different regions. When natural gas and coal gas are used as fuel, the amount of pollutants discharged is less and the environment is more friendly.
The main challenges of this technology application and consumer electronics are portability and cost. According to media reports, Apple applied for a patent to make the fuel cell system work with rechargeable batteries, so that the fuel cell system does not need to integrate large and heavy batteries, thereby significantly reducing the size, weight and cost of the fuel cell system.
3. It takes time to apply to Apple devices
The fuel cell company IntelligentEnergy, which is cooperating with Apple, has a consumer business. Its company website states that it can customize batteries according to customer requirements and provide support for various devices including laptops and mobile phones.
Last year, Intelligent Energy bought a lot of patents from a battery company to help it produce mobile fuel cells. These patents were purchased jointly with Apple. Now, what IntelligentEnergy needs to do is to reduce the size of its battery so that it can be installed on smart mobile terminals.
However, it may take years for fuel cells to actually enter Apple's equipment. Other manufacturers are also trying to use wireless charging technology, Wi-Fi signal charging technology and other new technologies to solve the charging problem, but at present, they have not achieved the desired results.
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