Vancouver-based Angstrom Power claims to have successfully completed a six month trial using a hydrogen-based fuel cell to run a Motorola mobile phone.
The fuel cell can be recharged in less than ten minutes and the firm said it had achieved twice the talk-time of the equivalent battery-powered device in side-by-side testing.
The fuel cells use hydrogen gas stored in a metal hydride and oxygen from the air to make electricity. The only by-product is water vapour and small amounts of heat.
STMicroelectronics is another company which expects to be manufacturing micro fuel cells for mobile phone handsets in 2009.