Hydrogen fuel cell tech can give smartphones enough juice to last a week on single charge

With this new technology, your phone could get an entire week’s battery life in a single charge. “Give us more juice” was the cry from tech enthusiasts at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show held in January in Las Vegas and the number one item on their tech wish list was better battery life, Fortune said in its survey report. To this increasing demand, Intelligent Energy – a 27-year-old British company working on clean power technology – has an answer. The company, in partnership with an “emerging” smartphone manufacturer, is working to bring hydrogen fuel cell technology to mobile devices that could give more life to batteries in a single charge. “Hydrogen fuel cells do not work like conventional lithium-ion batteries, charging and re-charging electrodes every time a phone needs a boost,” Fortune reported. “Instead they generate electricity from a chemical reaction, combining hydrogen with oxygen to create an electrical current as well as a water by-product.” “This technology can also be used to make a hybrid fuel cell battery. By integrating the powerful fuel cells into a phone battery, the device continues to be wall-chargeable, but also packs a boost of backup power,” the report noted. But to power up a fuel cell, you need to literally gas it up, adding more hydrogen to the device. The company had worked with Boeing to develop a fuel cell airplane in 2008 and in 2010 it helped put a fuel cell hybrid black cab on the streets of London. IANS