Although lithium battery technology has been ubiquitous in people's daily lives, it seems to have gradually approached the bottleneck in terms of energy density improvement. In order to realize the goal of replacing the battery for decades, scientists began to look into the new style. In the development of nuclear batteries, only the energy density of current prototype devices is low, and there is still some distance from practicality. The good news is that Russian researchers have just developed a new type of nuclear battery design based on nickel-63, which has a Ordinary commercial battery higher energy density.
Russian researchers have developed a nuclear battery prototype with energy density far beyond other devices (via: MIPT)
Nuclear power has always been highly controversial because any dissipating nuclear material may sustain dangerous emissions in the environment for decades (or even centuries).
But for the same reason, if we can properly use this feature, we can let the nuclear power device release energy slowly and continuously:
'Some nuclear batteries are based on the principle of 'betavoltaics' where radioactive sources within the device attenuate and emit beta particles (electrons and positrons).
When they interact with the semiconductor layer, they can generate current. Unfortunately, although these batteries can continue to provide energy for a long time, but the power density also means that only 'long flow'. '
Structure diagram of a prototype of a new nuclear battery (via: V.Bormashovetal.)
Providing relatively low energy for a long time makes the nuclear power supply more suitable for applications where it is difficult to replace the battery (such as spacecraft or implanted devices such as pacemakers).
In the past few years, we have also seen a 'strontium-based' battery that can decompose water molecules to generate electricity, and another type of 'NanoTritium' battery that lasts 20 years. .
However, a new type of nuclear battery developed jointly by the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), the Institute of Superhard and New Carbon Materials Technology (TISNCM), and the National University of Science and Technology MISIS, has adopted a Nickel-63 based design.
The radioisotope has a half-life of more than 100 years. The team designed a new layout to increase the power density of the battery. They determined that if it is wrapped in a sandwich structure of 10 μm thick, the most effective layer thickness of nickel-63 is. It is 2μm.
The picture shows a prototype of a new nuclear battery (via: Institute of Superhard and New Carbon Materials Technology)
In their prototype, they included 200 of these 'diamond energy converters' and achieved a 1μW output power. The converted energy density is 10μW/cm3, which means it can power a modern pacemaker. .
Taking into account the nickel-63 half-life, the nuclear battery has an energy density of 3300mWh/g, more than 10 times that of traditional chemical batteries.
In addition, researchers have developed a more efficient method to mass produce thin layers of diamonds with minimal losses. Although the production of nickel-63 may be tricky to a large extent, the team's industrial scale production after 10 years Very confident.
In the future, the team plans to continue to improve the design of nuclear batteries and has identified some methods to increase battery power. These include nickel-rich 63, changing the structure of the diamond converter, and giving these converters a larger surface area.
