DoCoMo Invests in Fuel Cell Firm

DoCoMo has announced that it will form a business and capital alliance with Aquafairy to develop products using fuel cells. DoCoMo will acquire an approximate 36.5% stake in Aquafairy through the purchase of newly allocated shares in the near future. The two companies are already working on a micro fuel cell recharger for 3G FOMA handsets using Aquafairy's hydrogen fuel cell technology.

Aquafairy, which develops and markets micro fuel cells for mobile devices, was established in Osaka in 2006 and has 11 employees.

In July, Aquafairy said that it had developed the smallest fuel cell in the world with power output of 2 watts. Their new recharger combines DoCoMo's recharger technology with Aquafairy's thin film power unit technology and catalyst for producing hydrogen from water. The simple hydrogen-producing mechanism and power units make the recharger less than one-fourth the size and more than twice as powerful as the methanol fuel cell prototype that DoCoMo unveiled on July 6, 2005."

Posted to the site on 12th September 2006