LiveScience.com wrote:
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 without a charge, scientists announced today.
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.
The battery is being developed at the University of Rochester. Its technology has been licensed by BetaBatt Inc.
The device is detailed in today's issue of Advanced Materials.
Power of the Future
"Our society is placing ever-higher demands for power from all kinds of devices," said Rochester electrical engineer Philippe Fauchet. "For 50 years, people have been investigating converting simple nuclear decay into usable energy, but the yields were always too low. 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."
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.
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. The manufacturing process is standard to the semiconductor industry, so no other technology breakthroughs are needed to bring the batteries to market.
The researchers are now working to improve the manufacturing process, aiming for batteries many times more efficient than those announced today.
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.
Never thought of using nuclear decay in that way before . . . enclose a strong beta-decay source with a semiconductor, and watch the semiconductor catch the electrons. Then use them to do your work. And beta particles don't penetrate very well, nor do they induce radioactivity. A very cool concept.
Of course, as is customarily demanded from posts such as these, I feel compelled to remark about how the OMG NUKES R T3H 3\/|1 crowd would probably pitch a fit about technology like this.
This isn't a new idea, it's been around for years and is somewhat similar to RTGs used in satellites etc. which use the heat of radioactive isotope decay instead, but in this case that wouldn't be good. Tritium powered batteries last a long time, and like they said, they hadn't been able to make them as efficient up until this technology. Good breakthrough.
Molyneux wrote:Hmmm...how long 'til I can get one of those for a laptop or cell phone?
Or, ah, 'personal massage appliance'...?
somehow i don't see this stuff being used in portable consumer goods.
They do, however, envision it being used with pacemakers. Which tend to be a fair bit more . . . intimate with your anatomy than any portable consumer electronics. Besides, the typical beta decay product can be stopped by a thin metal shell. Of course, rupturing the shell might not be the brightest idea you'd ever have, since beta radiation penetrates several meters of air.
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GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
They do, however, envision it being used with pacemakers. Which tend to be a fair bit more . . . intimate with your anatomy than any portable consumer electronics. Besides, the typical beta decay product can be stopped by a thin metal shell. Of course, rupturing the shell might not be the brightest idea you'd ever have, since beta radiation penetrates several meters of air.
well, a pacemaker isn't really something i'd consider a consumer good.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
If the pacemake's exterior shell is compromised, radiation poisoning is the least of your worries.
Think about how it might be opened, (bullet or knife) and don't worry.
They make medical implants with an insane amount of quality control overkill.
There has never been a pacemaker that had it's casing fail.
Hmmmmmm.
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They do, however, envision it being used with pacemakers. Which tend to be a fair bit more . . . intimate with your anatomy than any portable consumer electronics. Besides, the typical beta decay product can be stopped by a thin metal shell. Of course, rupturing the shell might not be the brightest idea you'd ever have, since beta radiation penetrates several meters of air.
I've seen the latest generation "shells" for bioimplants, rupturing them is simply not going to happen. In any event there is already enough crap inside many implants that cracking the shell stands a good chance of killing or hideously dicking you over anyway. It is a trivial egineering problem to keep the shell intact, cost wise it might not be so simple.
Better living brought to you by the wonders of etched silicon, yet again.
Molyneux wrote:Hmmm...how long 'til I can get one of those for a laptop or cell phone?
Or, ah, 'personal massage appliance'...?
somehow i don't see this stuff being used in portable consumer goods.
They do, however, envision it being used with pacemakers. Which tend to be a fair bit more . . . intimate with your anatomy than any portable consumer electronics. Besides, the typical beta decay product can be stopped by a thin metal shell. Of course, rupturing the shell might not be the brightest idea you'd ever have, since beta radiation penetrates several meters of air.
How much more intimate can you get than a "personal massager"?
Well, without actually being surgically implanted...which a pacemaker kinda is, d'oh...
Darth_Zod wrote:somehow i don't see this stuff being used in portable consumer goods.
I don't see why not, afterall we already use tritium glow tubes in watches, guns, clocks, and several other things I can't think of. Mind you those tubes are pretty small and don't hold nearly as much gas as a battery would, but I don't see why not. Heck, my watch has 14 tritium glow tubes in it.
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Say, do you want it to be a threesome with your wife? Or a foursome with your wife and sister-in-law? I'm up for either.
Molyneux wrote:Hmmm...how long 'til I can get one of those for a laptop or cell phone?
Or, ah, 'personal massage appliance'...?
I. for one, greatly support the idea of an *ahem* ATOMIC NUCLEAR POWERED SUPER VIBRATOR! Particularly if the outside material was made of glow in the dark material.
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I should mention I'd call it the "ICBM" and market it as the the answer to Cold War tension in the bed.
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
Molyneux wrote:Hmmm...how long 'til I can get one of those for a laptop or cell phone?
Or, ah, 'personal massage appliance'...?
I. for one, greatly support the idea of an *ahem* ATOMIC NUCLEAR POWERED SUPER VIBRATOR! Particularly if the outside material was made of glow in the dark material.
Finally. Batteries that last for years. Now I can finally set the universal record for playing Halo the longest amount of time.
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Technically that's diesel powered. The ICBM would be *ahem* NUCLEAR POWERED. And be made of glow in the dark material.
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
EmperorChrostas the Cruel wrote:If the pacemake's exterior shell is compromised, radiation poisoning is the least of your worries.
Think about how it might be opened, (bullet or knife) and don't worry.
They make medical implants with an insane amount of quality control overkill.
There has never been a pacemaker that had it's casing fail.
Damn straight. I know of a pacemaker that was going for 33yrs, outlived the doctor who put it in, and had to have the batteries removed to make it stop when my uncle finally died.
As for the battery, nice idea for military & space, but it will take years to be able to hit wide production.
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Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
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