This tech should boost their devices' portability tenfold

Sep 7, 2015 14:32 GMT  ·  By

Adding new and innovative technology within its devices is what makes Apple such a successful company with so many loyal customers. However, when they'll try to sell a hydrogen-powered iPhone or MacBook, those same customers might think twice considering how dangerous an overheating battery already is.

A new patent having Apple as an assignee describes a hypothetic fuel cell system that should be able to power a portable device for longer periods of time than a conventional rechargeable battery could.

Powered by hydrogen, various borohydrides and other hydrogen storage materials

As described in Apple's published "Fuel Cell System to Power a Portable Computing Device" patent, besides liquid or compressed hydrogen, this type of portable fuel system might be able to use a wide variety of other liquid or gaseous substances from lithium hydride to sodium borohydride and aluminum hydride, combined with water or in pure form.

Such a fuel system would work by allowing the user to manually change the fuel cartridges when the energy source (liquid or gas) has been consumed with another filled cartridge.

The advantage of using such an electricity producing system lays in the fact that once connected, such a fuel system might be able to produce enough energy to keep the portable device running for weeks on end.

Even more, because of the way a fuel cell might work, a rechargeable battery might not be needed at all, given the fact that a capacitor can be used to store power for the device to run until a filled cartridge with fuel is connected.

Might also fuel devices via wireless link

More importantly, as the patent says, the fuel cartridges should also be able to use a wireless interface to transmit energy to a portable device of one's choice, therefore eliminating the need to attach the fuel system onto the device using a physical link.

Because this type of energy creation mechanism will most definitely create waste materials, Apple also describes in the patent the need of "a mechanism for containing any waste product that may result from the hydrogen-producing reaction."

Even though the patent has already been published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, taking into account the sheer number of granted patents it has, it doesn't mean that Apple will release such a fuel system in the near future.

However, considering the huge improvement in battery life for all of its portable devices, this is one of the few that we should all be waiting for impatiently.

Fuel Cell Patent (2 Images)

The fuel cell system powering a portable device
The fuel cell system in detail
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