Posted on 05/14/2005 11:20:21 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A new type of battery based on the radioactive decay of nuclear material is 10 times more powerful than similar prototypes and should last a decade or more without a charge, scientists announced this week.
The longevity would make the battery ideal for use in pacemakers or other surgically implanted devices, developers say, or it might power spacecraft or deep-sea probes.
You might also find these nuclear batteries running sensors and other small devices in your home in a few years. Such devices "don't consume much power," said University of Rochester electrical engineer Philippe Fauchet, "and yet having to replace the battery every so often is a real pain in the neck."
Fauchet told LiveScience the batteries could last a dozen years. They're being developed at Rochester and the technology has been licensed by BetaBatt Inc.
How it works
The technology is called betavoltaics. It uses a silicon wafer to capture electrons emitted by a radioactive gas, such as tritium. It is similar to the mechanics of converting sunlight into electricity in a solar panel.
Until now, betavoltaics has been unable to match solar-cell efficiency. The reason is simple: When the gas decays, its electrons shoot out in all directions. Many of them are lost.
"For 50 years, people have been investigating converting simple nuclear decay into usable energy, but the yields were always too low," Fauchet explained. "We've found a way to make the interaction much more efficient, and we hope these findings will lead to a new kind of battery that can pump out energy for years."
Fauchet's team took the flat silicon surface, where the electrons are captured and converted to a current, and turned it into a three-dimensional surface by adding deep pits.
Each pit is about one micron wide. That's four ten-thousandths of an inch. They're more than 40 microns deep.
Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. Mixed with chemicals that emit light, it is used to illuminate exit signs without electricity -- the sort commonly found in schools and other public buildings.
"It is safe and can be implanted in the body," Fauchet said. "The energetic particles emitted by tritium do not penetrate inside the skin."
Tritium emits only low energy particles "that can be shielded by very thin materials, such as a sheet of paper," said Gadeken of BetaBatt. "The hermetically-sealed, metallic BetaBattery cases will encapsulate the entire radioactive energy source, just like a normal battery contains its chemical source so it cannot escape."
The device is detailed in today's issue of Advanced Materials.
Improvements needed
The manufacturing process is standard to the semiconductor industry, so no other technology breakthroughs are needed to bring the batteries to market. Still, don't expect anything on the store shelves for at least two years, Fauchet said. His team is now working to improve the manufacturing process, aiming for batteries many times more efficient than those announced today.
"If we are as successful as we think we may be, it will take less than five years before this technology is adopted," he said.
Graduate student Wei Sun of the University of Toronto was lead author on the paper describing the work, which was supported by the National Science Foundation.
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Hey -- but this battery runs 12 years!
;^)
I do think it's pretty cool. :-)
I saw a promethium-147 battery back in the 60s that operated on the same principle.
So be careful about stocking up on those multi-packs at Sam's lest you inadvertently reach critical mass...
I don't know what's a big deal with that. I have a GPS receiver that has a 10 year lith. battery to hold information.
Probably the nuke battery provides greater power(product of actual voltage and current supplied by the battery), for as much time as comparably sized Lithium-based ones.
Casio has a $30 watch with a 10-year lithium battery.
Can you have them in those nuke free zones in the US and elsewhere? (joke)
Only bad thing is you'll have to wear a tin foil hat if want to use anything with those batteries in it. :D
I don't know what's a big deal with that. I have a GPS receiver that has a 10 year lith. battery to hold information.This is very common; the difference is, virtually no current is drawn from the 10 yr lithium back-up battery; this little 'nucelar' baby will actually provide usable amounts of current, such as for use in a pacemaker or Verichip tracker device ...
If the battery is rated for 10 years it's probably good for at least 15. I bought a Timex in 1990 that had a 3-year battery and that sucker lasted until 1998.
Just a quibble, but...
That is an order of magnitude off. Should be
about 0.4 ten thousandths of an inch.
Or the easier said and (for me) remembered, "forty millionths" of an inch.
.000 040
I just hope they weren't that far off on the life expectancy of the battery.
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