Keeping our mobile device batteries healthy has called for solutions like battery packs, emergency chargers, adapters, solar panels, and a wide range of accessories. Fuel cells, much desired for their capacity, also appear on that list, though limited by their proprietary refills. The Kraftwerk project brings a bit of balance by using butane gas as its main fuel.
Skateboards, a backpack, urine, paper... everything works when it comes to charging batteries. From an emergency situation to a multi-day escape into the mountains, generating power without access to the main grid can be a real challenge if we do not have the right tools. Some dry branches and a flame are all that solutions like the CampStove or the PowerPot (which also requires a little water) need, but none of those options is truly portable. Battery packs have their limits, and a cloudy day can take even the most faithful solar panel out of combat. What about fuel cells then? Basically, market offerings are few, expensive, and troublesome with their refills. More than one person has said that fuel cells are not practical and that continuing their development makes no sense, but the people at eZelleron think differently.
Kraftwerk in detail
The name of their product is Kraftwerk (not related to the band) and it proposes recharging mobile devices using butane gas, the same gas found in canisters (cylinders) and small tubes for lighters. According to its developers, the complete cell can charge an iPhone eleven times, is restored with any traditional gas (eliminating the need for proprietary cartridges), the process takes just three seconds, and the unit is safe enough to take on a plane. It is a bit larger than a mobile phone and weighs 200 grams when charged, so there is no doubt about its portability.
Funding and delivery
Kraftwerk is a very complex project, and as such it set a very high bar on Kickstarter (500 thousand dollars), but in a matter of days it managed to overcome it, and with a month to go it is rapidly approaching one million dollars. At the moment, the price to get one of the cells is 99 dollars, with delivery in February 2016. The theory behind Kraftwerk is very good, and apparently it already has some functional prototypes. Still, we must take this cell with a pinch of salt. To tell the truth, not the first time we talk about butane recharges. You may remember the Lilliputian Systems cell, which at first promised the sky, only to end in bankruptcy two years later, burning 150 million dollars on a product that never existed. It will be a matter of time to see if Kraftwerk learned anything from that or not.
