Nuclear waste powered battery lasts thousands of yearshttps://www.thebrighterside.news/post/nuclear-waste-powered-battery-lasts-thousands-of-yearsRadioactive diamond batteries were first developed in 2016 and were immediately acclaimed because they promised a new, cost-effective way of recycling nuclear waste. In this context, it’s unavoidable to deliberate whether they’re the ultimate solution to these toxic, lethal residues.
Nano-diamond batteries from NDB are described as alpha, beta, and neutron voltaic batteries and have several new features according to their website.
Durability. The firm calculates that the batteries could last up to 28,000 years, which means that they could reliably power space vehicles in long-duration missions, space stations, and satellites. Drones, electric cars, and aircraft on Earth would never need to make stops to be recharged.
Safety. Diamond is not only one of the hardest substances, but also one of the most thermally conductive materials in the world, which helps protect against the heat produced by the radioisotopes that the battery is built with, turning it into electric current very quickly.
Market-friendliness. Thin-film layers of PCD in these allow the battery to allow for different shapes and forms. This is why nano-diamond batteries can be multipurpose and enter different markets, from the aforementioned space applications to consumer electronics. The consumer version would not last more than a decade, though.
Nano-diamond batteries are scheduled to come onto the market in 2023.
Arkenlight, the English firm commercializing Bristol’s radioactive diamond battery, plans on releasing their first product, a microbattery, to the market in the latter part of 2023.
University of Bristol researcher Professor Tom Scott told Nuclear Energy Insider that, “By removing the Carbon-14 from irradiated graphite directly from the reactor, this would make the remaining waste products less radioactive and therefore easier to manage and dispose of. Cost estimates for disposing of the graphite waste are 46,000 pounds ($60,000) per cubic meter for Intermediate Level Waste [ILW] and 3,000 pounds ($4,000) per cubic meter for Low-Level Waste [LLW]."
