POWER YOUR SMARTPHONE FOREVER!

          Who needs lithium ion battery in your smartphones which needs constant charging after certain time period anymore, and makes us carry the charger whenever we go camping, thanks to the university of Missouri researchers who found out the nuclear battery!  But this might be bad for the people who consider Wi-Fi signals are bad for your health! But it might be a good news for the people who are using the smartphones and other smart devices 24/7.  

     First of all nuclear battery as the name suggests it does not contain any reactor inside it, which might be extremely dangerous and might be a showcase invention if made into a commercial product.  Instead it uses the beta voltaic process to produce electricity.  As the name tells it generates power from the decay of beta particles.  It might sound similar to the photovoltaic cells!  But instead of photons it generates electricity from the beta radiation.

     Beta voltaic techniqueuses 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.  The  flat  silicon  wafer  is coated  with  a  diode  material  to  create  a  potential  barrier .  The  radiation absorbed in the surface of any potential barrier like a p-n junction or a metal-semiconductor  contact, would  generate separate  electron-hole pairs which in turn flow in an electric circuit due to the  voltaic effect and if it is connected to external load via the regulator, we can constantly supply the current.

      Basically, Kim and Kwon’s nuclear battery consists of a platinum-coated titanium dioxide electrode, water, and a piece of radioactive strontium-90. Strontium-90 (Sr-90) radioactively decays with a half-life of 28.79 years, producing an electron (beta radiation), an anti-neutrino, and the isotope yttrium-90. Y-90 itself has a half-life of just 64 hours, decaying into more electrons, anti-neutrinos, and zirconium (which is stable). The best thing about using strontium-90 as a fuel is that it produces almost no gamma radiation — so, as far as radioactive materials go, it’s pretty safe and easy to handle. (Still, there’s no avoiding the fact that it’s used extensively in medicine, both for radiotherapy of cancer, and as a radioactive tracer.)

      Asus has already created prototype as in the name of Zenpower Atom which uses radioisotope thermoelectric type process as quoted above. They use Strontium-90 as the radio isotope as it is more easily available than plutonium. Asus quotes that prototype has a lifetime of 5 years to be completely depleted!

     Implanted medical devices are a natural application for beta voltaic power sources, whose life spans of longer time will help the trauma patients.  we can see the return of betavoltaic powered cardiac pacemakers, cochlear implants, intraocular implants, brain computer interfacing devices etc.  However, today`s small scale chemical batteries can provie power only for few months at best, but it can provice power for years!

ADVANTAGES:

1. reliable
2. lighter with high energy density
3. life span of decades
4. efficient use of end product obtained post nuclear fission and nuclear fusion process as fuel in nuclear batteries!
5. energy obtained is high
6. reduces greenhouse effect and related effects

DISADVANTAGES:

1. high initial cost of production
2. energy conversion methodologies are not much advanced
3. to gain social acceptance!
4. regional and country specific laws regarding the use and disposal of radioactive materials.

     The current research of nuclear batteies shows promise in future applications.  Implementation of this new technology, feasibility of the device will be available for wide range of application,  Nuclear cells are going to be the next best thing ever invented in human history.  

     “But surely having a battery, and thus a mobile device, packed full of radioactive material is a bad idea, and some might even consider having reactor inside a mobile phone will create a global catastrophe or might be a Chinese mission for WW3!” I hear you say. And usually, yes, you’d be right. What makes a betavoltaic battery somewhat safe is that beta radiation can be easily stopped with a thin piece of aluminium!  Gamma radiation, on the other hand, has so much penetrative power that it can only be stopped by a big lump of lead (or other dense metal). This doesn’t mean that beta radiation in itself is safe, it can cause cancer and death, but it’s much easier to control. Just make sure the Betavoltaic nuclear battery casing is more than a couple of millimetres thick and don’t drop it. Ever. But this might be the future of the energy storing devices.  We can see this kind of batteries in local vendor shops soon! 

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About Sooriyamathy

This blog is created to explain people the concepts, which they are finding difficult to understand in electrical and electronics world. This blog also post stuff related to stargazing.