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Power Science

Scientists Build a Nuclear-Diamond Battery That Could Power Devices for Thousands of Years (livescience.com) 88

Posted by EditorDavid from the diamonds-are-forever dept.
The world's first nuclear-powered battery — a diamond with an embedded radioactive isotope — could power small devices for thousands of years, according to scientists at the UK's University of Bristol.

Long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shared this report from LiveScience: The diamond battery harvests fast-moving electrons excited by radiation, similar to how solar power uses photovoltaic cells to convert photons into electricity, the scientists said.

Scientists from the same university first demonstrated a prototype diamond battery — which used nickel-63 as the radioactive source — in 2017. In the new project, the team developed a battery made of carbon-14 radioactive isotopes embedded in manufactured diamonds. The researchers chose carbon-14 as the source material because it emits short-range radiation, which is quickly absorbed by any solid material — meaning there are no concerns about harm from the radiation. Although carbon-14 would be dangerous to ingest or touch with bare hands, the diamond that holds it prevents any short-range radiation from escaping. "Diamond is the hardest substance known to man; there is literally nothing we could use that could offer more protection," Neil Fox, a professor of materials for energy at the University of Bristol, said in the statement...

A single nuclear-diamond battery containing 0.04 ounce (1 gram) of carbon-14 could deliver 15 joules of electricity per day. For comparison, a standard alkaline AA battery, which weighs about 0.7 ounces (20 grams), has an energy-storage rating of 700 joules per gram. It delivers more power than the nuclear-diamond battery would in the short term, but it would be exhausted within 24 hours. By contrast, the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years, which means the battery would take that long to be depleted to 50% power....

[A] spacecraft powered by a carbon-14 diamond battery would reach Alpha Centauri — our nearest stellar neighbor, which is about 4.4 light-years from Earth — long before its power were significantly depleted.
The battery has no moving parts, according to the article. It "requires no maintenance, nor does it have any carbon emissions."

Scientists Build a Nuclear-Diamond Battery That Could Power Devices for Thousands of Years More | Reply

Scientists Build a Nuclear-Diamond Battery That Could Power Devices for Thousands of Years

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  • Scientists report (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bodhammer ( 559311 ) on Saturday December 21, 2024 @11:42PM (#65032017)
    The technology could be available in 5-10 years.

  • I remember this being mentioned a while back. It seems improved, with it almost 1/50 the power of a conventional battery per gram. However, for low voltage applications, where a few millivolts is good enough, perhaps as a watchdog circuit to wake everything up if a sensor detects a threshold, this would be quite useful. Or maybe even scale it up a bit more, and it could be used for a low power radio (think AirTag) to protect some item indefinitely.

    Overall, a promising technology. I'm glad this has been

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      I remember this being mentioned a while back. It seems improved, with it almost 1/50 the power of a conventional battery per gram. However, for low voltage applications, where a few millivolts is good enough, perhaps as a watchdog circuit to wake everything up if a sensor detects a threshold, this would be quite useful. Or maybe even scale it up a bit more, and it could be used for a low power radio (think AirTag) to protect some item indefinitely.

      Overall, a promising technology. I'm glad this has been improved on.

      > a watchdog circuit to wake everything up if a sensor detects a threshold

      Why not use the same power source which powers the circuit then? Just leave the circuit in sleep mode, the bigger batteries will have to be maintained anyway even if the circuit seldom powers up and the circuit will have to be tested once so often. The tiny battery mentioned in TFA wouldn't make any difference anyway since it provides negligible power in comparison.

      • Because while this might have much lower power, it has much more energy?
        That said, consider the example:
        1 gram = 15 Joules/day. It's 0.173 watts/kg
        AA battery = 20 grams, 700 joules.

        Adjusting up to 20 grams, the nuclear battery could produce 300 joules/day. It is capable of producing more energy than the AA in 56 hours. While being able to last centuries.

        A use case for having a split power system might be a smoke alarm, for example. A standard 9V battery can power one for a year, even with monthly tests.

        • Except the alkaline battery outputs the energy mostly as electricity (+ a bit of heat), whereas this presumably outputs it as nuclear radiation which needs to be converted to electricity. How efficient is this process? We already have polonium batteries, so presumably this can work in the same way as them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AvitarX ( 172628 )

          The summary says the AA is 700 joule per gram.

          So it'd be about 2 months to equal a single battery.

          • You are correct. I missed that part when pulling figures out for the calculations.

            Still, mostly the same though. You'd use this in applications where you want decades of operation, not months or even a year.

          • The summary says the AA is 700 joule per gram. So it'd be about 2 months to equal a single battery.

            It would work well for the kitchen drawer flashlight that receives infrequent use. Maybe the car flashlight. Have the diamond trickle charge a rechargeable AA or AAA.

            Similar story for some electronic devices in my toolbox. I'm not a pro, just home repairs, so infrequent use again.

  • clickbait horseshit? (Score:5, Informative)

    by hydrodog ( 1154181 ) on Sunday December 22, 2024 @12:02AM (#65032029)
    What do they mean "first nuclear battery?" I seem to remember seeing this on slashdot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] The chinese betavolt has been available for a while, and it was a spinoff from research done somewhere else. I didn't look at the specs, and it sounds like this one is better, but it certainly isn't the first. This article talks about thousands of years, which sounds a lot better than the 50 year lifespan of the chinese device. Of course this one is barely out of the lab, and the article smells like bullshit.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      What do they mean "first nuclear battery?"

      It is a result of a cascade of stupidity. From poor writing in the article, to EditorDavid adding the crowning touch. I think it started with somebody saying it was the first prototype of a carbon-14 diamond battery.

    • Re:clickbait horseshit? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sique ( 173459 ) on Sunday December 22, 2024 @03:04AM (#65032139) Homepage
      I even have old tech magazines from the 1960ies, with nuclear batteries dating back to the end-1950ies. And how, I pray, are Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 powered, so far out in Space without enough sunlight for solar cells? Right! With a nuclear battery.

      Nuclear batteries are very old tech. What's new in this case is the diamond encapsulation, which, one hopes, prevents nuclear leaks for the foreseeable future.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 )

        I believe the ones you refer to are thermocoupled. If you read TFA or even the summary, this one emits no radiation beyond its diamond shell, making it safer.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sique ( 173459 )
          Ok, this is a betavoltaic device - like the Betacel, developed in the 1960ies to power artificial cardiac pacemakers.

          The novel idea hear is the usage of C14 in a diamond structure. C14 is a beta radiator, and diamond is a semiconductor. Instead of a photon causing the emission of a beta particle a.k.a. an electron, like in a solar cell, you use the C14 -> N14 decay.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by e3m4n ( 947977 )

            I guess if we ever develop nano/micro machines this would make for a decent power source. Power to weight ratio would be key.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Sique ( 173459 )
              Power output is pretty low. C14->N14 emits an electron with about 0.156 MeV or about 2.5*10^-14 J. The total energy in 1 g of C14 is thus about 1.5*10^8 J. In the first 5760 years, you get 50% of that, that means about 40 Milliwatts of average power. Burning 1 g of Carbon releases 36 kJ. That means, burning Carbon would allow for a similar power output for about four month. But C14 is only about 1*10^-11 of all Carbon. To get 1 g of C14, you would have to use 100.000 metric tons of natural Carbon, and if

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

                Commercial betavoltaic batteries right now generally produce about 5mW of power. Even the Chinese one earlier this year only delivered about that much as well.

                Of course, if you need more power, there are other options. There are batteries that have a shelf life of decades, and can supply a bit more power. As a bonus, they are significantly cheaper, so things that don't need a ton of power and can last decades might be better off using those long life batteries over this.

                Nuclear batteries are neat, but their

  • Crystal structure won't last (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mspangler ( 770054 ) on Sunday December 22, 2024 @12:16AM (#65032037)

    Carbon has four bonds, nitrogen three. As the carbon 14 decays to nitrogen the diamond will fall apart. After one half-life the average composition will be cyanide.

    Diluting the C14 will extend the life of the crystal structure at the cost of increasing the weight of the power unit.

  • It is a micro generator. This has the usual issue of "Science reporting" trying to dumb it down so much that it gets it wrong.

  • oh not this stupidity again (Score:4, Informative)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Sunday December 22, 2024 @01:21AM (#65032081) Homepage Journal

    These things produce less power than the average termite fart. They have extremely limited applications, such as bios batteries and low power clocks. I recall seeing one discussing "self-recharging AA batteries", which is fine if you are okay with your AA taking 15 years to recharge. They're absolutely worthless to the average consumer.

    Go to YouTube and search for "debunk nuclear battery" for several educational videos from well-know and respected presenters. I especially liked EEVblog's video on the subject.

    • These things produce less power than the average termite fart.

      How convenient! I just finished designing an interstellar spaceship drive that's powered by termite microfarts, but haven't been able to figure out how to keep the termites alive during the long trip.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by v1 ( 525388 )

        EEVblog actually made two videos on this. The first was a flat out debunking the self-charging nuclear AA (4 years ago) and a more recent (1 year ago) one on the SEC filing a lawsuit against them. Frauds.

        I mentally file this with "solar freeking roadways"

      • That's easy. Just include a cord or two of wood.

    • They're absolutely worthless to the average consumer.

      That is enough power for a pacemaker that never needs replacement (15 microjoules J)
      That is enough power for a smart ring (a few milliwatts)
      That is enough power for a tracking device (like an airtag)
      That is enough power for a simple digital watch (2 milliwatts)

      Heck, many consumer electronics have no battery at all, like credit card chips, toll tags, pet microchips.

      So yeah, a termite that can fart consistently for 5K years would indeed be useful for many consumer electronics.

    • So was the first normal battery, and look where we are now. Precisely zero people are marketing this to an average consumer.

    • They have extremely limited applications, such as bios batteries and low power clocks. I recall seeing one discussing "self-recharging AA batteries", which is fine if you are okay with your AA taking 15 years to recharge.

      From the summary: "A single nuclear-diamond battery containing 0.04 ounce (1 gram) of carbon-14 could deliver 15 joules of electricity per day. For comparison, a standard alkaline AA battery, which weighs about 0.7 ounces (20 grams), has an energy-storage rating of 700 joules per gram."

      Isn't that more like 2.5 years? Anyways, if the nuke is trickle charging a rechargable AA or AAA that might work for infrequently used things, flashlight in kitchen drawer, etc. Or get wild and use more than one nuke in a

    • These things produce less power than the average termite fart. They have extremely limited applications, such as bios batteries and low power clocks.

      And Internet of Things protocols such as BLE are designed so they operate in short bursts on a schedule. A microwatt gives you a miliwatt for a milisecond every second, which is quite enough for substantal crunch and radio action if you spend the other 999 miliseconds asleep. This is how they run for years on a tiny coin cell. A long halflife betavoltaic bat

  • They are deliberately comparing values that sound nice, but can not be compared without calculating a few x and y's out of their implicitly given formulas. When calculated, does not sound so usable at all and have a bunch of hard to solve challenges. Yes, they have stretched one value to the extreme, but on the cost of other values. No progress could be possible if noone did that, but so far this is either a normal physics evolvement process or they want money and thi is overhyped right from themselves.
  • One thing that might derail this is if Western countries put up tariffs on China, which is the leading producer of synthetic diamonds and is driving down prices.

  • It should, the power cells have a half-life of five thousand years.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • WTF happened to slashdot with the intrusive ads and not rendering pages!

  • There is at least one Company in California making these for medical devices for a while now. How is this news?

  • According to the summary, a standard alkaline AA battery has an energy-storage rating of 700 joules per gram and weighs 20 grams. So that's a total energy storage of 700 * 20 = 14,000 joules. At 15 joules per day, the diamond battery can produce that same amount of energy in 14,000 / 15 = 933.33 days. So it takes about 2.5 years to produce the power contained in one AA battery. How much trouble is it to replace a AA battery in a low-draw device every 2.5 years? Even if it was fairly cheap, this would have

    • How much trouble is it to replace a AA battery in a low-draw device every 2.5 years?

      So you're quite happy to undergo a major operation every 2.5 years for the rest of your life to have that pacemaker battery replaced?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Moike ( 986142 )
        Typical pacemaker batteries last 5-15 years, not 2.5. And the surgery for battery replacement isn't a "major operation", as it's significantly less invasive than the original pacemaker installation. But more importantly, there is a better option. https://mednews.uw.edu/news/re... [uw.edu]

    • Let's Do the Math!. 14,000 / 15 = 933.33 days.

      You didn't do the math, as soon as you type '=' the AI assistant inserted the answer as autocomplete. :-)

      this would have no practical purpose for any device accessible to human hands

      It could trickle charge the AA flashlight in my kitchen drawer or my car. I doubt they get 24h of use in 2.5 years.

  • The researchers chose carbon-14 as the source material because it emits short-range radiation, which is quickly absorbed by any solid material — meaning there are no concerns about harm from the radiation.

    The "short-range radiation" is clearly alpha-particles. I learned this stuff decades ago, but if you have radioactive decay producing alpha particles, beta particles will also be produced (and I can't remember if there are any circumstances where gamma rays are not produced). I'm wondering how th

    • The researchers chose carbon-14 as the source material because it emits short-range radiation, which is quickly absorbed by any solid material — meaning there are no concerns about harm from the radiation.

      The "short-range radiation" is clearly alpha-particles.

      It's beta decay and emits an electron. I'm not sure about the "dangerous to...touch with bare hands," since dead skin would absorb most of the energy with only the possibility of a beta burn if exposed to enough energy over time. Ingesting it might be more dangerous, just as you don't want to ingest alpha emitters, but then again our body already has C-14 in it, which is why carbon dating works.

    • Not quite, the short ranged radiation is already beta particles, not alphas (both are short ranged, albeit alphas are shorter). "Batteries" like this convert the beta radiation directly to electricity (beta radiation is, after all, already electricity, in a sense).

  • More math (Score:3)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday December 22, 2024 @11:10AM (#65032583)

    The part I might screw up:

    An AA battery gives you 700j/g. You have 20g of AA, so 14000j. Then you're going to divide that number by 15j, the amount of energy the diamond battery can produce per gram daily. You get ~933. So for every "AA battery-day" you need 933x the mass in diamond batteries to get the equivalent power, except you keep getting that same power day after day after day.

    Now comes the fun bit I'll almost certainly screw up.

    The Voyager probes have three RTGs each, with an initial power output of 157W each. I'm just going to deal with a single unit to avoid having to divide or multiply by three each time I do another calculation. 157W is about 13.5mj/d. Each RTG massed 37.7kg, or 37,700g. (Metric's lovely that way). Dividing energy in joules by mass in grams, you get 358j/d/g.

    So to replace Voyager's energy generation systems with diamond batteries for the greater longevity they would supply would take about 24x the mass. That's another 867kg (about 1900 lbs) you'd have to add to the probe.

    On the other hand, you'd get an extra 5000 years of service life.

    • Yep. Screwed it up.

      I'm pretty sure I forgot to multiply by 3 in the final step, to account for the Voyager probes having three RTGs each.

      So an extra 2600kg or 5700 lbs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drnb ( 2434720 )

      The part I might screw up:

      An AA battery gives you 700j/g. You have 20g of AA, so 14000j.

      Avoid the screw ups by letting the AI autocomplete do the math for you. Instead of prose, write an equation.

      Type "700 J/g * 20 g =". After you type the '=', "14,000 J" will appear as autocomplete.

  • I know this article isn't a dupe, but since these Nuclear Diamond Batteries are still being "Invented" I might as well "repost" the same thing I posted last time. This time with an added video that he posted from the last article. I'm sure I'll be up to 4 videos the next time the diamond battery shows up here.

    EEVblog #1333 - Nuclear Diamond Self-Charging Battery DEBUNKED!
    https://youtu.be/uzV_uzSTCTM?s... [youtu.be]

    EEVblog 1579 - Nuclear Diamond Battery FRAUD Lawsuit by SEC!
    https://youtu.be/5M5MF6KE-jY?s... [youtu.be]

    EEVblog 1595

  • This has been going on for years, why is this posted here now?

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    "...
    Prototypes

    Currently, no known prototype uses 14C as its source. There are, however, some prototypes that use nickel-63 (63Ni) as their source with diamond non-electrolytes/semiconductors for energy conversion, which are seen as a stepping stone to a possible 14C diamond battery prototype.
    University of Bristol prototype

    In 2016, researchers from the University of Bristol claimed to have constructed one of those 63Ni prototypes.[3][4]

    From their Frequently Asked Questions (F

  • Tell me when I can plug a reasonably sized stack of these into an LED and have it on forever.

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