I have seen the futureof the cell phone and it is liquid. Just a teaspoon of fuel could recharge a battery on the move and provide 10 hours of talk time and 60 hours of standby time.

Unlike a conventional cell phone battery, the recharging is instant. There is no need to wait for minutes or hours while it charges up.

The technology was demonstrated by Nokia, the Finnish group, at a technology futures briefing in Helsinki last week.

Tero Ojanperä, head of its research centre, showed off one of 100 Bluetooth headsets powered by fuel cells, which will be used by company staff as it tests the technology. It has also developed a fuel-cell powered prototype of its Nokia Communicator phone.

Users power up the Bluetooth headset by pouring a small amount of methanol into the tank of the fuel cell inside.

Small holes on one side of the headset allow air into the fuel cell. Oxygen in the air then reacts with the liquid to produce energy. Mr Ojanperä says a 12ml bottle of methanol, about the size of a perfume bottle, could be sold in newsagents or cell phone stores, and contains enough fuel for 60 hours of conversation - and nearly 400 hours of standby battery life.

Nokia did not disclose the Asian partner with which it is developing the fuel cell technology, but it is thought to be a Japanese company.

Mr Ojanperä says it will take less than than two years to commercialise the technology. One application could be for travellers rushing through airports and stations with little time to stop and recharge, especially when held up by lengthy security checks.

Professionals based in tough environments might also benefit, as they may not have access to an electrical supply for recharging conventional cell phone batteries. These might include engineers and telecommunications staff involved in reconstruction projects or disaster relief workers. But the wider market might simply consist of those who forget to charge their phones or go abroad without packing a mobile battery charger.

Fuel cell technology has been around for some time, but has usually been associated with cars. Yet the cells could eventually be used to power other devices, such as laptop computers, portable MP3 music players or personal organisers. Toshiba, the Japanese electronics manufacturer, is working on fuel cell technology for laptop computers.

But fuel cell technology is not without its flaws. It consumes energy. It is also flammable, though Matti Naskali, research manager for Nokia Japan, says: "It is not as flammable as cigarette lighter fuel; it is more comparable with ethanol, found in vodka."

It is also a toxic liquid, a fact that has to be taken into account in product and fuel cartridge design. Regulations also restrict travellers wishing to take methanol on aircraft.

Nokia has overcome other obstacles in adapting fuel cells for use in cell phones. One was how to design products that would distribute liquid efficiently but not messily.

In the modified HS-3W Bluetooth headset, the DC jack (into which a power cable is normally plugged) has been replaced with a filling vent, from which fuel goes directly into a methanol fuel cell. Using methanol and oxygen as fuel, the cell then generates and supplies power directly to the headset.

At the moment, one of Nokia's biggest pre-commercialisation issues is how to get the methanol bottles into the supply chain, though it says that, in the case of a Bluetooth headset, one year's supply of fuel can fit into the package customers buy when they purchase the product.

Methanol could also please the green lobby. It has the potential to be produced from environmentally friendly materials, though today it is mainly produced from natural gas.

So is the conventional cell phone battery dead? Not according to Nokia. Fuel cells are "one potential complementary power supply technology to batteries that open new possibilities to make life more mobile".

The phone battery may not be dead yet, but when it disappears few will mourn its loss.