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Would You Believe . . .
Hydrogen-Powered Wheelchairs!???
Fuel cell technology is being developed at an unstopable
rate and it will
soon provide power to all sorts of energy using products –
and
wheelchairs are among those products. There is already a fuel
cell wheelchair on the market that gets its power from
hydrogen-converting fuel cells rather than a standard, conventional
battery.
Micro fuel cell technology is the new darling of the
technocrat crowd. Conventional batteries are becoming
inadequate for the increasing power and complexity of portable
electronic devices such as cell phones, laptop computers, and video
recorders. Yes, especially motorized wheelchairs.
Soon there will be a new portable power solution
– micro
fuel cells.
Fuel cells have traditionally
been developed for
use in specialized vehicles as an alternative to the gas-guzzling
characteristics of other
vehicles.
There are other types of products, though, that also require energy as
well – such as those mentioned above. They need to
have
effective, clean solutions to regular batteries – solutions
that
can allow them to run longer and faster without sacrificing
performance. That’s where a micro fuel
cell comes into
the picture.
The first micro fuel cells developed were designed
to be
compatible replacements for conventional cellular phone battery packs.
Capable of being produced in economical mile-long, thin, printed sheets
(much like printed circuits), micro fuel cells may eventually make
small batteries obsolete.
They're better, smaller, less-costly,
environmentally
safe, and much more efficient. The great news is that micro
fuel cells could
eventually
become equivalent to the standard car battery with enough power to
start and power a car. Developers, however, are not yet
confident
at
this point in their research that micro fuel cells will actually have
enough
power to match that of a conventional battery.
Regular batteries just eventually “run
out of
juice”. Fuel cells, on the other hand, recharge and
rejuvenate
themselves making them an "everlasting" power source. Micro
fuel cells are designed to run on hydrogen
or other
natural alternatives to gasoline. That’s actually
what all
developing fuel cells are designed to run on. By
powering a wheelchair with fuel cells, for example, folks can greatly
reduce the cost of operating thei wheelchair.
One of the prototypes for a fuel cell wheelchair
is called the "MIO."
Although it does not use a micro fuel cell,
this wheelchair features a fuel cell that uses
methanol as a fuel source to generate hydrogen and therefore
electricity. The “gas” tank holds about
four gallons of methanol which is sufficient to provide the MIO with a
range of approximately twenty-five miles!
There’s also an LCD display for these
wheel chairs that shows the fuel level as well as
power source. Therefore, unlike wheelchairs that rely solely
on a charged battery, the fuel cell wheelchair addresses
users' greatest fear -- that of being stranded away from home with a
dead
battery in their motorized wheelchair. A large capacity
Li-ion secondary battery acts as a storehouse for the electricity
generated
by the fuel cell and as a back-up power source.
Fuel cell wheelchairs are
just as safe as
conventional
battery powered wheelchairs, so users need not worry. The
best
part is that the energy is self-generating so the power will be there
after a little rest 'n recovery.
Many large companies have started getting into the
fuel cell wheelchair
market. As technologies emerge, this will
quickly become the wheelchair of choice among people who use
wheelchairs. They are safe, economical, great looking, and
easy-to-use.
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