4 ms·

Diamonds are forever? World-first carbon-14 diamond battery made

17 points by miles 2y ago

almaight 2y ago
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-betavolt-atomic-china-b2476979.html https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-betavolt-...
duskwuff 2y ago
We've been getting a slow drip of press releases about this concept since at least 2016. Has anything substantial changed, or is this just a reminder? Reality check, because everyone always gets excited about this: the power density of these devices is on the order of 10 µW/cm^3 - about eight orders of magnitude lower than a lithium-ion battery. Technical advances may improve that somewhat, but it will never be competitive with conventional power sources.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Unlike a lithium ion battery, it will NEVER need to be recharged. Not on civilizational timescales at least.
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    That's cool, and useful for some applications, but it's still not a replacement for basically anything the average person would use a battery for.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      The thing is radioactive. This isn’t meant as a replacement for everyday use.
      - chmod775 2y ago
        As long as you don't crack open the casing and diamond shell around the carbon-14 in order to eat it or use it as a skincare product, you'll be just fine handling the thing. Inevitably someone will do that, but only because they've somehow avoided deleting themselves from the gene pool through any of the more available options. And even then they'll probably still manage it some other way before the carbon-14 can do its work.
- science4sail 2y ago
  Yeah, this sort of thing is unlikely to replace lithium batteries in EVs or portable electronics (unless you want to play with more intensely radioactive materials, which is a can of worms). The more likely use case would be for extremely long-lived stationary devices - for example, a remote monitoring system that is only accessed once every few years.
theamk 2y ago
Wikipedia is more informative for this battery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_battery > Due to its very low power density, conversion efficiency and high cost, a 14C betavoltaic device is very similar to other existing betavoltaic devices which are suited to niche applications needing very little power (microwatts) for several years
- foxglacier 2y ago
  It has to be more than "several" years since a watch battery can already deliver microwatts for several years in a watch.
  - science4sail 2y ago
    "several years" is an understatement - given that carbon-14's half-life is ~5000 years, it's more like several Pluto years, not Earth years.
9949607420 2y ago
[flagged]
9949607420 2y ago
[flagged]
nickserv 2y ago
So now we have a way to power the focus technology from Horizon ZD.
- crest 2y ago
  Only if it runs on a a few microwatts (average power consumption). Any buffering to normal timescale batteries or large capacitors would introduce additional losses. Their self discharge rate might even exceed the power output of such a battery. I get it. It's a joke, but given that those devices are supposed to be worn on the body several energy recovery options exist that far exceed the power you can expect to get from an isotope battery in a compact device before the blue effects come from Cherenkov radiation instead of CGI and require frequent user changes instead of battery changes. Unless you have a copy of APOLLO stowed away changing batteries is easier than training new users ;-).
survirtual 2y ago
Neat, but we are way behind in this area as a species. We should be processing spent nuclear reactor fuel and extracting Strontium-90 ( sr-90 ) in mass. Sr90 is a heavy beta emitters, orders of magnitude more energetic than carbon14, with a 28.8 year half-life. This lower half-life means a higher specific activity, which allows for more practical uses. Of course, higher energy beta emitters are more dangerous, but we've been playing with fire for a long time now, so that shouldn't stop anyone. At 10% beta emissions capture, a beta-voltaic device can be built now with sr90 that emits roughly 5w in a form factor slightly larger than a AA battery. With the current price and availability of sr90, this battery would cost around $3 million on raw materials alone. By increasing the use of nuclear energy and reprocessing fission byproducts, sr90 could be made significantly more plentiful. If you couple an sr90 betavoltaic with a power reservoir, such as a lithium ion battery, you would drastically increase the lifespan of the li-ion battery and be capable of peak-power outputs greatly in excess of what the sr90 micro generator can provide. With more developments in betavoltaics, efficiency would likely increase significantly -- beta emissions are electrons, after all, they just need to be captured and utilized. If photons can be capture and used at such a high efficiency in solar panels, you better believe electrons can as well.

17 points by miles 2y ago

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-betavolt-atomic-china-b2476979.html https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-betavolt-...

duskwuff 2y ago

We've been getting a slow drip of press releases about this concept since at least 2016. Has anything substantial changed, or is this just a reminder? Reality check, because everyone always gets excited about this: the power density of these devices is on the order of 10 µW/cm^3 - about eight orders of magnitude lower than a lithium-ion battery. Technical advances may improve that somewhat, but it will never be competitive with conventional power sources.

adastra22 2y ago
Unlike a lithium ion battery, it will NEVER need to be recharged. Not on civilizational timescales at least.
- rcxdude 2y ago
  That's cool, and useful for some applications, but it's still not a replacement for basically anything the average person would use a battery for.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    The thing is radioactive. This isn’t meant as a replacement for everyday use.
    - chmod775 2y ago
      As long as you don't crack open the casing and diamond shell around the carbon-14 in order to eat it or use it as a skincare product, you'll be just fine handling the thing. Inevitably someone will do that, but only because they've somehow avoided deleting themselves from the gene pool through any of the more available options. And even then they'll probably still manage it some other way before the carbon-14 can do its work.
science4sail 2y ago
Yeah, this sort of thing is unlikely to replace lithium batteries in EVs or portable electronics (unless you want to play with more intensely radioactive materials, which is a can of worms). The more likely use case would be for extremely long-lived stationary devices - for example, a remote monitoring system that is only accessed once every few years.

theamk 2y ago

Wikipedia is more informative for this battery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_battery > Due to its very low power density, conversion efficiency and high cost, a 14C betavoltaic device is very similar to other existing betavoltaic devices which are suited to niche applications needing very little power (microwatts) for several years

foxglacier 2y ago
It has to be more than "several" years since a watch battery can already deliver microwatts for several years in a watch.
- science4sail 2y ago
  "several years" is an understatement - given that carbon-14's half-life is ~5000 years, it's more like several Pluto years, not Earth years.

9949607420 2y ago

[flagged]

9949607420 2y ago

[flagged]

nickserv 2y ago

So now we have a way to power the focus technology from Horizon ZD.

crest 2y ago
Only if it runs on a a few microwatts (average power consumption). Any buffering to normal timescale batteries or large capacitors would introduce additional losses. Their self discharge rate might even exceed the power output of such a battery. I get it. It's a joke, but given that those devices are supposed to be worn on the body several energy recovery options exist that far exceed the power you can expect to get from an isotope battery in a compact device before the blue effects come from Cherenkov radiation instead of CGI and require frequent user changes instead of battery changes. Unless you have a copy of APOLLO stowed away changing batteries is easier than training new users ;-).

survirtual 2y ago

Neat, but we are way behind in this area as a species. We should be processing spent nuclear reactor fuel and extracting Strontium-90 ( sr-90 ) in mass. Sr90 is a heavy beta emitters, orders of magnitude more energetic than carbon14, with a 28.8 year half-life. This lower half-life means a higher specific activity, which allows for more practical uses. Of course, higher energy beta emitters are more dangerous, but we've been playing with fire for a long time now, so that shouldn't stop anyone. At 10% beta emissions capture, a beta-voltaic device can be built now with sr90 that emits roughly 5w in a form factor slightly larger than a AA battery. With the current price and availability of sr90, this battery would cost around $3 million on raw materials alone. By increasing the use of nuclear energy and reprocessing fission byproducts, sr90 could be made significantly more plentiful. If you couple an sr90 betavoltaic with a power reservoir, such as a lithium ion battery, you would drastically increase the lifespan of the li-ion battery and be capable of peak-power outputs greatly in excess of what the sr90 micro generator can provide. With more developments in betavoltaics, efficiency would likely increase significantly -- beta emissions are electrons, after all, they just need to be captured and utilized. If photons can be capture and used at such a high efficiency in solar panels, you better believe electrons can as well.