Nuclear battery can last 50 years without recharging

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that most people’s dream is to have cell phones or laptops with batteries that last 50 years, don’t need to be charged and are environmentally friendly. This may already be on the way. At the beginning of January, the Chinese company Betavolt New Energy Technology, founded in 2021, announced a miniature atomic energy battery that combines Nickel-63 isotope decay technology and the first diamond semiconductor module. According to the company, the novelty, which is already in the pilot phase, when it reaches the market, will be able to meet the demands of long-term energy supply in various scenarios, such as aerospace, Artificial Intelligence, medical equipment, MEMS (Micro-ElectroMechanical System) systems, sensors, drones and robots.

Atomic batteries convert the energy released by the decay of nuclear isotopes into electrical energy by means of semiconductor converters. According to Betavolt, there are currently only thermonuclear batteries used in the aerospace industry, which are large in size and weight, work at high temperatures and are expensive, and cannot be used by civilians.

Betavolt explains that its batteries use a completely different technological approach, generating electric current through the semiconductor transition of beta particles (electrons) emitted by the Nickel-63 radioactive source. To do this, it has developed a single-crystal diamond semiconductor just 10 microns thick by placing a 2-micron-thick sheet of Nickel-63 between two diamond semiconductor converters.

These new nuclear batteries are modular and can be made up of dozens or hundreds of independent modules. They can also be used in series and parallel and produced in different sizes and capacities.

The first product that Betavolt will launch will be the BV100, with a power of 100 microwatts, a voltage of 3 V and dimensions of 15 x 15 x 5 cubic millimeters; it will be smaller than a coin. It can generate 8.64 joules per day and 3,153 joules per year. The company plans to launch a battery with a power of 1 watt in 2025. “If regulatory policies permit, atomic energy batteries will allow a cell phone to never need to be recharged, and drones will be able to fly for 15 minutes continuously,” says Zhang Wei, president and CEO of Betavolt.

Atomic energy batteries are not considered electrochemical models, like lithium batteries. They can function normally in the range of 60 degrees below zero to 120 degrees, without risk of explosion. According to Betavolt, its atomic energy battery is absolutely safe and does not emit radiation externally, and can even be used in medical devices such as pacemakers. They are also environmentally friendly, because after the decay period, the Nickel-63 isotope as a radioactive source becomes a stable copper isotope, which is not radioactive and poses no threat or pollution to the environment. With these characteristics, Betavolt’s nuclear batteries will not require expensive recycling processes, unlike current chemical battery models.

According to Betavolt, this is a major technological breakthrough both in the field of batteries and semiconductors and supercapacitors, putting China “far ahead” in terms of scientific research.

The company has already registered a patent in Beijing and will begin to do the same worldwide. In contact with universities and nuclear research institutions in China, Betavolt has shown interest in continuing research involving other isotopes, such as Strontium-90, Promethium-147 and Deuterium to develop atomic energy batteries with greater power and a useful life of between 2 and 30 years.

More about nuclear batteries

One advantage of nuclear batteries over other types is their high energy density, i.e. the total amount of energy stored per unit mass. In the case of nuclear batteries, the energy density is much higher than that of chemical batteries. On the other hand, nuclear batteries have a very low power density, a characteristic that refers to how quickly the battery can discharge energy.

Batteries with high energy density but low power density can work for longer periods of time. This is the case with cell phone batteries. However, nuclear batteries cannot compete with chemical batteries or fuel cells in applications that require high power.

Many research groups have been working to develop nuclear batteries. The idea emerged in the 1950s, but faced limitations in research areas and in the use of general radioactive materials. The pioneer to apply the concept in practice was Donald W. Douglas Laboratories in 1974, when a battery called betacel was developed for use in a pacemaker.

More recently, in addition to Betavolt, another company has started investing in atomic batteries. British start-up Arkenlight, founded in 2020, is working on the development of batteries that recycle waste from the nuclear energy industry, such as Tritium and Carbon-14. “Today, the proliferation of low-power electronics has heralded a new era for nuclear batteries. They are a great option for cases where there is very low energy consumption – we’re talking about microwatts or even picowatts. We can say that the Internet of Things has been an important driver for the revival of these energy sources,” said Morgan Boardman, CEO of Arkenlight in an interview with Wired.