If Necessity Is the Mother of Invention, Then Mom Is at Home

More Adventures in the Household Lab

--Richard Mandel

How many designs and inventions originate in someone's home? Edison rummaged through his wife's sewing box when looking for material for the first lamp filament. Last month's layer one described Professor Robert Taylor stripping a magnetron from the home microwave for use in his fusion reactor. And Bob Hockaday's first fuel cell, built while he was still in high school, caught on fire in his mother's oven.

Hockaday had a fascination with fuel cells and how they were almost 100 percent efficient in producing electricity through the combining of hydrogen and oxygen, without combustion. His thoughts returned to the matter time and again, even being the source for his topic for his master's thesis in mechanical engineering. Fuel cells take the mechanical energy in a fuel, such as methanol, and produce electrical energy by creating a circuit through which electrons in the fuel travel from a negative to a positive electrode. A mechanical device is necessary in a fuel cell to govern fuel flow rate for peak performance. Would it be possible, Hockaday mused, to create a small cell with microscopic holes in a plastic film acting as the controller?

Hockaday continued to pursue the problem in the apartment he shared with his wife, while working at Los Alamos as a diagnostic physicist. During this time, a friend dropped by, asking for his help in a project that involved creating circuits on a material called nuclear pore, typically used for blood filtration. Hockaday knew he found his grail. Los Alamos gave him leave to pursue this work, which first moved into high gear in the basement, then an office space, with the help of a business entrepreneur.

In November 1998, a crude model of Hockaday's fuel cell maintained 40mW for 24 hours, the demand of a cell phone on standby. His goal is a formal prototype by end of April '99, the size of a cell phone battery but with 1/2 the weight and 3 to 5 times the energy output.

And his mother still uses the same stove.

For more information, contact Manhattan Scientifics, 127 Eastgate Dr., Los Alamos, NM 87544. 505-662-0660. Circle 420.