UK Nuclear Lab Achieves Americum-Generated Power (world-nuclear-news.org) 135
Long-time Slashdot reader nojayuk quotes World Nuclear News (a publication of the World Nuclear Association):
The UK's National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and University of Leicester have generated usable electricity from the chemical element americium in what it believes to be a global first. The achievement is seen as a step towards potential use of americium in so-called space batteries, which may mean future space missions can be powered for up to 400 years.
Americium is an element not found in nature, but which is produced by the radioactive decay of plutonium -- which itself is produced during the operation of nuclear reactors. A team led by NNL has extracted americium from some of the UK's plutonium stocks, and used the heat generated from this highly radioactive material to generate electric current, which in turn lit up a small light bulb -- all within a specially shielded area of NNL's Central Laboratory in Cumbria, England.
The breakthrough means potential use of americium in radioisotope power systems for missions which would use the heat from americium pellets to power spacecraft heading into deep space or to challenging environments on planet surfaces where other power sources, such as solar panels, no longer function. In this way, NNL said, such space missions can carry on sending back vital images and data to Earth for many decades, far longer than would otherwise be possible.
Tim Tinsley, NNL's account director for the work, calls it "recycling something that is a waste from one industry into a significant asset in another," though he adds that the plutonium is not exactly being recycled. "We 'clean' the americium from it, which would have been a waste. With sufficient applications, all of the UK plutonium could be 'cleaned' of the americium. The returned plutonium is in a better condition, ready for further storage or reuse as nuclear fuel."
Americium is an element not found in nature, but which is produced by the radioactive decay of plutonium -- which itself is produced during the operation of nuclear reactors. A team led by NNL has extracted americium from some of the UK's plutonium stocks, and used the heat generated from this highly radioactive material to generate electric current, which in turn lit up a small light bulb -- all within a specially shielded area of NNL's Central Laboratory in Cumbria, England.
The breakthrough means potential use of americium in radioisotope power systems for missions which would use the heat from americium pellets to power spacecraft heading into deep space or to challenging environments on planet surfaces where other power sources, such as solar panels, no longer function. In this way, NNL said, such space missions can carry on sending back vital images and data to Earth for many decades, far longer than would otherwise be possible.
Tim Tinsley, NNL's account director for the work, calls it "recycling something that is a waste from one industry into a significant asset in another," though he adds that the plutonium is not exactly being recycled. "We 'clean' the americium from it, which would have been a waste. With sufficient applications, all of the UK plutonium could be 'cleaned' of the americium. The returned plutonium is in a better condition, ready for further storage or reuse as nuclear fuel."
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We're gonna Amuricum all over the solar system now!
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How do they synethsize Americum? (Score:1)
...in the Large Hardon Collider, obviously!
Re: Hey... cool! (Score:3, Informative)
Good troll. That will be one yuan and 2 social points.
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The UK has plutonium stocks. Getting the Americium was "hard and very expensive to produce"?
But the UK now has international "expertise" in "handling and processing" Americium.
Something about energy for missions that "lasts 100s of years" has "benefits"
A "lunar mission"?
Funded by the European Space Agency? So EU money was on the table? Why not go full Americium?
UK plutonium could be 'cleaned' of Americium? After cleaning the plutonium is in better condition for storage/use i
Re: Why? (Score:3)
Huh? There are 22 core members in the ESA and only 2 are non-EU members. Of the remaining cooperative members, only Canada is a non-EU member.
27 of the 28 members of the EU are part of and fund a portion of their GDP to the ESA. The GDP of the member states is directly connected to the EU partnership.
I think the EU rightfully deserves the credit. It's like saying the Federal Reserve isn't ultimately owned by the US government because of their level of independence.
And I counted the U.K. as part of the E.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Radioisotope batteries can be just made with plutonium. Why is Americium better?
Assuming you mean Plutonium-238: longer half-life. 432 years for Americium-241, versus 88 years for Plutonium-238.
The longer half-life means a power generator [wikipedia.org] using Americium-241 would have a smaller drop in electric output over the course of its design life (eg. long duration space mission). Also -according to the article- Americium is considered sort of a waste product from nuclear power plants.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Pu-238 production requires a multi-step process with radioactive intermediate byproducts being exposed to neutron flux in specialised reactors, Am-241 can be chemically separated from existing and future stocks of spent reactor fuel as well as surplus weapons-grade plutonium. This is a simpler and theoretically cheaper process.
If the Voyager space probes had been fitted with Am-241 RTGs rather than Pu-238 they'd have about 90% of their launch electrical power capability left instead of about 50% as they have today.
Am-241 RTGs will be bigger and heavier than Pu-238-fuelled devices to produce similar amounts of electrical power, a trade-off which may be more worthwhile investigating as launchers become cheaper and more capable.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily if the planned mission is long. The generator has to be big enough that at the end of the mission it is still producing enough power to run the probe. For a long mission, a Pu-238 reactor must be way oversized at the start of the mission in order to have enough left at the end. At some point, that oversize will outweigh (literally) the lower power/Kg of the Am-141 generator.
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If the Voyager space probes had been fitted with Am-241 RTGs rather than Pu-238 they'd have about 90% of their launch electrical power capability left instead of about 50% as they have today.
A good example that works against this technology. As we can see from developments of the past, even back then we have been able to well exceed the solar system. What we now have in deep space is a hunk of incredibly obsolete tech that isn't expected to provide any scientific value anymore.
Before you consider AM241 suitable you need to ask yourself what problem you're trying to solve. Do you have a space mission that needs 400 years of battery life? An AM241 RTG is unlikely to be suitable for interstellar t
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If the Voyager space probes had been fitted with Am-241 RTGs rather than Pu-238 they'd have about 90% of their launch electrical power capability left instead of about 50% as they have today.
A good example that works against this technology. As we can see from developments of the past, even back then we have been able to well exceed the solar system. What we now have in deep space is a hunk of incredibly obsolete tech that isn't expected to provide any scientific value anymore.
Before you consider AM241 suitable you need to ask yourself what problem you're trying to solve. Do you have a space mission that needs 400 years of battery life? An AM241 RTG is unlikely to be suitable for interstellar travel, so what is it you want to achieve?
Just because tech is "old" does not mean that it does not provide scientific value. Voyager still provides scientific value since no other instrument platform is so far from the Sun. As long as the instruments work they provide value.
Yes, an Am-241 RTG is absolutely suitable for "interstellar travel", not to another star system that we currently know about mind you, but to nearby interstellar space in a manner similar to the Voyager final mission profile.
One mission that has been discussed for the future i
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The longer half-life of Am-241 vs Pu-238 doesn't help much, if any, to increase the useful life of power output of a RTG with current RTG technology. The power output over time of the Pu-238 powered RTGs in use now decreases more due to degradation of the energy converting thermocouples than it does to the reduction in heat output of the Pu-238. This is briefly discussed in the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#Life_span). There are technologies in wor
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So it is fortunate that, as this article documents, that development of Am-241 RTGs for extreme duration operation is beginning. You typically don't invest in developing a technology until a need arises.
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The power output over time of the Pu-238 powered RTGs in use now decreases more due to degradation of the energy converting thermocouples than it does to the reduction in heat output of the Pu-238. This is briefly discussed in the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#Life_span). There are technologies in work to help with this but none have gone into a real RTG, AFAIK.
That link only documents the fact that the thermocouples used in 1976, 43 years ago, did not have a century-long full operating capacity. It says nothing about RTG technology available today. Also it does not necessarily follow that a 20% reduction in efficiency over 43 years means that this will continue at the same rate over the next 43 years - it might stabilize, or it could be worse.
Materials science has advanced dramatically over the last half-century and continues to do so. Certainly better materials
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The Voyager RTG thermocouples degrade by about 1.7%/year. The current MMRTG thermocouples (as used on e.g. Curiosity) degrade by about 4%/year, so we've gone in the wrong direction on this metric. It doesn't help that several attempts at designing a better RTG have been cancelled.
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If the Voyager space probes had been fitted with Am-241 RTGs rather than Pu-238 they'd have about 90% of their launch electrical power capability left instead of about 50% as they have today.
Not necessarily. The power output of an RTG drops for 2 reasons: decreased heat input due to decay of the source element, and decreased efficiency of the thermocouple due to radiation damage. In a Pu-238 RTG each contributes about half (with some of the newer RTGs having worse thermocouples than the older generation).
Am-241 produces more gamma radiation, so you'd expect more deterioration in the thermocouples.
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The thermocouples can be, ahem, decoupled from the Am-241 elements by heat pipes or other heat transfer systems. It reduces the efficiency of the RTG a little but protects the thermocouples from the Am-241 gamma radiation, which is anyway quite weak (5 keV or so) compared to the hot heavy alpha 5 Mev particles both isotopes produce.
A bigger problem will be the cumulative effects of cosmic background radiation on the thermocouples and other sensitive parts of a spacecraft, especially over a timescale of deca
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A Bismuth powered generator will work for billions of years...
You are off by a factor of more than a trillion. Bismuth has a half-life of 19 quintillion years.
So a generator would last a long time, but produce very little power.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
A generator using proton decay, will last even longer than Bismuth (and be even more useless).
Proton decay is still hypothetical. So far, there has been no experimental evidence.
So H2 would be a very poor choice for an RTG.
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Radioisotope batteries can be just made with plutonium. Why is Americium better?
And for God's sake spell it right.
Plutonium-based radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTGs, they really aren't batteries) use Pu-238 which has a short enough half-life (87.7 years), and an energetic alpha decay (5.6 MeV), so that it is a strong heat source (0.568 W/g), but long enough that it is useful for deep space missions that can exceed 50 years (Voyager 2 is expected to remain active about that long).
If want missions deep into interstellar space we will need sources that remain strong well past a century. Very deep missions will re
Special Relationship (Score:2)
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I've been hoarding it for years hoping for exactly this kind of breakthrough.
Is that you, Radioactive Boy Scout [wikipedia.org]?
Ok Now Go For Californium 252 (Score:2)
at 27 million a gram
https://www.metalary.com/calif... [metalary.com]
awesome; (Score:2)
Americanium is used in smoke detectors (Score:5, Informative)
So it's not entirely a waste product. (I'm not familiar with the decay chain, but my guess would be Americanium is preferred because the isotopes immediately down its decay chain have long half lives, meaning the vast majority of the radioactivity is from the Americanium itself rather than from its decay products.)
Re: Americanium is used in smoke detectors (Score:1)
Error: Are you missing a closing ')'?
Here in France (Score:2)
Re:Here in France (Score:5, Funny)
We had a similar idea, but our space program uses Francium instead of Americium.
Unfortunately, the half-life is 22 minutes, even less than that of the French army.
Re:Or not?!..Wait, What? (Score:5, Informative)
They have achieved part of the process: separating americium, and using it to generate power. There are a few more parts:
1. producing enough Americium to build an RTG that is capable of producing 100-400 W at the start of the mission. This probably means replacing the lab setup they have now with a proper production line.
2. designing an RTG that has a long enough lifetime so it's usable for a space probe, and tough enough to survive a launch mishap.
This process has potential based on two things: Americium is much easier to get than Pu-238, certainly for Europe. ESA missions so far have not been able to use RTGs because Europe doesn't have Pu-238.
And with the longer half-life you can build RTGs that provide usable levels of power for longer than a Pu-238 RTG would.
This is not fake news.
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Americum-generated power? (Score:1)
Producing all this Americum will require a lot of porn featuring incest, and interracial pairings made to seem taboo. Also the piping that moves it will need to run at high temperatures to prevent the cholesterol within from congealing and freezing the whole system solid.
What is Americum? (Score:1)
I have heard of Americium, but I have no idea what Americum is.
Or is EditorDavid an even bigger imbecile than msmash?
no, they're not called space batteries! (Score:2)
In the space industry, these are called radiothermal generators (RTG) or radioisotope power systems (RPS) [nnl.co.uk].
Great, quantities of Americium (Score:2)
radioactive UFOs (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not a problem, astronauts approaching a probe with an alien RTG could detect that. Say a project starshot type thing that was boosted with laser or microwaves but used radioisotopes for computer and telemetry.
Of course, a probe with active propulsion likely would NOT be using an RTG.
Note an americium powered RTG has very long life, 400+ year half-life but only 25% the output of the plutonium types. Good choice for us to use for a probe to star systems actually since the travel time could be half a century
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He wouldn't be swallowing it, but he is not opposed to your grandmother swallowing it. Just to give you an idea of how demented he is, he pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Accords on climate change arguing it is a Chinese plot to do something or other. However, he's suing the Irish government to allow him to put up sea walls to protect his precious golf blot on their landscape (yes, he owns one of those blots in Ireland) from the ravages of climate change which, he and his Mom&Pop company argues, is causi
Re: Americum (Score:1)
Re: Americum (Score:1)
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Says the free speech advocate.
I guess it just all depends on whose president is being gored. By Putin.
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Oh, look at who's the politically correct SJW cultural Marxist now!
For the record, I completely support the right of those of you in the gay community to suck a dick. Suck all the dicks you want. However, I strongly object to a sitting president sucking the dick of a murderous dictator who seeks to harm the US.
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I think you're arguing with someone else.
There is no one more politically correct than the far right. You proved that with your weak attempt to distract from Trump's humiliation at the hands of Putin, the Saudis, Kim Jong Un, etc. They've bent him over and used him like a woman, repeatedly.
If you don't believe me, go express a pro-choice view on a far right website like Breitbart, Stormerhedge or Daily Caller. You'll be banned or modded into ob
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You're arguing with someone else again. Why do you SJWs always assume everyone has to have the same "standards" as you do?
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" It's what a lot of people notice about the far left."
It's what a lot of people notice about the far right. Funny how similar they are.
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Haven't you heard? Pluto isn't a planet.
A dwarf planet is still a planet.
Of course, neither plutonium, neptunium, nor mercury were named after planets; the planets and elements were both named after deities.