Are Radioactive Diamond Batteries the Solution to Nuclear Waste?

Nuclear power is considered a clean source of energy because it does not cause carbon dioxide emissions; At the same time, however, there are also huge amounts of hazardous radioactive waste, which can be identified as More and more reactors are being built around the world.

Experts have proposed various solutions to this problem in order to better protect the environment and human health. If there is insufficient safe storage space for the disposal of nuclear waste, these ideas will focus on the Reuse of materials.

Radioactive Diamond batteries were first developed in 2016 and were immediately lauded for promising a new, low-cost way to recycle nuclear waste. With this in mind, it is imperative to think about whether they are the ultimate solution to these toxic, deadly residues.

What are radioactive diamond batteries?

Diamond radioactive batteries were first developed by a team of physicists and chemists from the Cabot Institute for the Environment at the University of Bristol. The invention was presented as a beta voltaic device, which means that it is powered by the beta decay of nuclear waste.

Beta decay is a type of radioactive decay that occurs when the nucleus of an atom contains an excess of particles and releases some of them to give a more stable ratio of protons to neutrons. This creates a type of ionizing radiation called beta radiation, in which many fast and high-energy electrons or positrons, so-called beta particles, are involved.

Source: MikeRun / WikimediaCommons

Beta particles contain nuclear energy that can be converted into electrical energy by a semiconductor.

A typical beta voltaic cell consists of thin layers of radioactive material placed between semiconductors. When the core material breaks down, it emits beta particles that dissolve electrons in the semiconductor and create an electric current.

The power density of the radioactive source is, however, lower the further away it is from the semiconductor. Since beta particles are also randomly emitted in all directions, only a few of them hit the semiconductor and only a few of them are converted into electricity. This means that nuclear batteries are much less efficient than other types of batteries. This is where the polycrystalline diamond (PCD) comes into play.

The diamond radioactive batteries are manufactured by a process called chemical vapor deposition, which is widely used for the manufacture of artificial diamonds. It uses a mixture of hydrogen and methane plasma to grow diamond films at very high temperatures. Researchers modified the CVD process to grow radioactive diamonds by using a radioactive methane that contains the radioactive isotope carbon-14 found on irradiated reactor graphite blocks.

diamond is one of the hardest materials known to mankind – it’s even harder than silicon carbide. And it can act as both a radioactive source and a semiconductor. Expose it to beta radiation and you get a long-lasting battery that doesn’t need to be charged. The nuclear waste inside heats it up again and again so that it can recharge itself forever.

However, the Bristol team warned that their radioactive diamond batteries would not be suitable for laptops or smartphones as they only contain 1g of carbon-14, meaning they deliver very little power – just a few microwatts, which is less than a typical one . is AA battery. As a result, their use has so far been limited to small devices that have to be left unattended for a long time, such as sensors and pacemakers.

Nano-diamond radioactive batteries

The origins of atomic batteries can be traced back to 1913, when the English physicist Henry Moseley discovered that particle radiation can generate electricity. In the 1950s and 1960s, the aerospace industry was keen on Moseley’s discovery, as it could potentially power spaceships for long-term missions. RCA Corporation also investigated an application for atomic batteries in radio receivers and hearing aids.

But other technologies were needed to develop and maintain the invention. In this regard, the use of synthetic diamonds is considered revolutionary as it gives the radioactive battery security and conductivity. Together with nanotechnology, an American company built a high-performance nano-diamond battery.

Synthetic nano diamond crystalsSource: D. Mukherjee / Wikimedia Commons

NDB Inc., based in San Francisco, California, was founded in 2012 with the goal of creating a cleaner, greener alternative to traditional batteries. The startup presented its version of diamond-based batteries in 2016 and announced two proof-of-concept tests in 2020. It is one of the companies trying to commercialize radioactive diamond batteries.

NDB’s nano-diamond batteries are described as alpha, beta, and neutron voltaic batteries and have several new features, according to their website.

    • Durability. The company estimates the batteries could last up to 28,000 years, which means they could reliably power spacecraft in long-term missions, space stations and satellites. Drones, electric cars and airplanes on earth would never have to stop to be charged.
    • Safety. Diamond is not only one of the hardest substances, but also one of the most thermally conductive materials in the world, protecting against the heat of the radioisotopes that make up the battery and converting it into electricity very quickly.
    • Market friendliness. Thin film layers of PCD in these allow the battery to take various shapes and forms. Because of this, nano-diamond batteries can be versatile and can enter different markets, from the space applications mentioned above to consumer electronics. However, the consumer version wouldn’t last more than a decade.

Nano-diamond batteries are expected to come onto the market in 2023.

Arkenlight, the English company that markets Bristol’s radioactive diamond battery, plans to launch its first product, a micro battery, in the second half of 2023.

The future of radioactive diamond-based batteries

The portability of modern electronic devices, the increasing popularity of electric vehicles and the 21st century races Taking mankind on long space missions to Mars has sparked a growing interest in battery technology research in recent years.

Some types of batteries are better suited for certain applications and not as useful for others. But we can say that the conventional lithium-ion batteries known to us will not be replaced by radioactive diamond batteries in the foreseeable future.

Conventional batteries last shorter, but are also significantly cheaper to manufacture. At the same time, however, it is problematic that they do not last that long (they have a lifespan of around five years) because they also produce a lot of electronic waste that is not easy to recycle.

Diamond radioactive batteries are more practical because they last much longer than traditional batteries. If they can be evolved into a universal battery, as suggested by NDB Inc., we could get smartphone batteries that last much longer than the life of the smartphone, and we could easily switch the battery from one phone to the next, much like us now transfer the SIM card.

However, the diamond betavoltaics developed by Arkenlight won’t go that far. The company is working on designs that will stack many of their carbon-14 beta batteries into cells. In order to provide high power discharge, each cell could be accompanied by a small supercapacitor which could provide excellent high speed discharge capability.

But even this radioactive material has a lifespan of more than 5000 years. If this radiation comes out of the device in gaseous form, it could be a problem. This is where diamonds come in. At the diamond formation the C-14 is a solid, so it cannot be extracted and absorbed by a living being.

The The UK Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA) calculated that 100 pounds (about 45 kg) of carbon-14 could enable the production of millions of long-lasting diamond-based batteries. These batteries could too Reduce the cost of storing nuclear waste.

University of Bristol researcher Professor Tom Scott told Nuclear Energy Insider: “By removing the carbon-14 from irradiated graphite directly from the reactor, the remaining waste products would be less radioactive and therefore easier to handle and dispose of. The cost estimates for disposing of the graphite waste are 46,000 pounds ($ 60,000) per cubic meter for medium-weight waste [ILW] and 3,000 pounds ($ 4,000) per cubic meter for low level waste [LLW]. “

Don’t all these qualities make it one of the best sustainable future options we need? It remains to be seen whether manufacturers will find a way to deal with production costs and low energy consumption and bring their diamond-based batteries to the market in a cost-effective and accessible manner.

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