Fuel cell technology firm Intelligent Energy said in a press release that it entered a joint development agreement with an unnamed smartphone manufacturer to develop a battery that can last for over a week without needing to be charged.
The unnamed manufacturer, which was described by Intelligent Energy as an "emerging smartphone OEM," will look to have the company's fuel cell technology embedded into its devices, which will allow for the battery to last for longer than a week on a single charge.
The smartphone manufacturer will be making an investment of as much as £5.25 million, or $7.6 million, into research and development for fuel cell technology that can be packed into mobile devices.
Intelligent Energy has been making good progress within the fuel cell technology industry, having introduced the power solution to several of the famous black cabs of London. In fact, it was reported in August last year that the company has been developing a hydrogen-powered battery for the iPhone 6. It would seem that the next challenge for the company is to solve the increasingly relevant problem of battery life for smartphones.
While smartphone technology is further developed with advanced hardware and software, it is becoming more important for the devices to have sufficient capacities for their batteries as new features add to the power requirements of smartphones.
For the agreement with the smartphone manufacturer, Intelligent Energy will be building on its prototype of a smartphone with fuel cell technology embedded into it, and will look to have this technology licensed.
"We have been working with the OEM over recent weeks, demonstrating to them what our hydrogen fuel cell technology can achieve when embedded into a smartphone," said the company's acting managing director for its Consumer Electronic Division, Julian Hughes.
Hughes added that the company believes in fuel cell technology as the solution for the battery life problems that consumers are facing right now, as innovations so far in smartphone batteries have not been able to keep up with the increasing power requirements of the devices.
Henri Winand, Intelligent Energy's CEO, added that the technology could be introduced to the market in as fast as two years.
As for which company is the unnamed smartphone manufacturer, no further details were revealed.
