ALBANY, N.Y.—Micro fuel cell developer MTI MicroFuel Cells Inc. announced that its technology has been chosen to fuel a series of mobile phone and accessory prototypes by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
The two companies will work together to develop, test and evaluate MTI Micro’s Mobion technology, which relies on methanol to power its fuel cells and produce electricity. MTI Micro expects that Mobion fuel cells will have longer runtimes than traditional batteries, instantly recharge, and generally allow cell phone consumers to use more power-hungry multimedia features.
Samsung and MTI Mobile noted that new advantages from the Mobion technology could “enable new features for future mobile phones that, until now, have been constrained by traditional battery power sources.”
“Our goal is to make Mobion a standard power source used for powering all types of mobile products, and under this agreement, our work with Samsung on mobile phones and accessory applications will be a major step in achieving that goal,” said Peng Lim, president and chief executive officer of MTI Micro.
Research firm Frost & Sullivan has forecasted that the market for micro fuel cells for consumer electronic devices will hit about 80 million units by 2012.
