Mizzou's nuclear battery to power things smaller than your brain can imagine
By Darren Murph 
posted October 10th 2009 11:52AM
posted October 10th 2009 11:52AM
Oh yeah, everyone loves the extended battery, but are we really kosher with the added bulge? A team of boffins at the University of Missouri certainly aren't, as they've spent the last good while of their lives researching and developing a new nuclear battery that could be used to power devices much smaller than, well, most anything. The radioisotope cell, as it's called, can reportedly "provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries," and while some may question the safety of this potentially volatile device, the liquid semiconductor (used instead of a solid semiconductor) should help ease concerns. The current iteration of the device is about the size of a penny, and it's intended to power a variety of MEMS systems. Now, if only these guys could find a way to make a standard AA last longer than a week in our Wiimote, we'd be pleased as punch.[Via BBC, thanks Jim]
Mizzou's nuclear battery to power things smaller than your brain can imagine
I hope they invent a nuclear battery that can power small brains that can't imagine :D
if by "power", you mean "give cancer to"
i dont like the idea of a nuclear battery. what happens if it leaks like normal batteries? one way trip to the grave.
Uh -oh, don't let Iran get ahold of these.
@Ganonwolf
You die a slow and very painful death. But hey, at least your phone won't!
Moreover, what safeguards are in place to keep this thing from overloading and exploding like Li-Ion batteries do?
Please define "six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries".
100,000 times more power in the same size. Hope that helps.
also, just for reference, an order of magnitude is 10x a value.
i.e., 3 orders of magnitude = 10^3
Pretty amazing tech, I just wonder how long til it reaches consumers. Y'all should know by not that a nuclear battery would be plenty safe, the word nuclear doesn't imply nuclear holocost. especially since these are so small.
I think it would actually be 1,000,000 times as dense if it's 6 orders of magnitude denser. If you take it too literally you might even say 1,000,001 times as dense.
A million times as much.
well, correct me if I'm wrong here, but if your phone lasts 8 hours with moderate use (newer smartphones, iPhone, Pre, etc), then it would be 8*8*8*8*8*8, which is over two million dollars!!!!
...hours.
...I'd put a nuclear battery in my pocket for two million hours of battery life.
All they are doing is the same thing that NASA does for their space probes. It's a small amount of radioisotope, that due to radioactive decay produces heat. Add in a thermocouple and you get electricity.
This doesn't have to be uranium, plutonium or thorium. It can be a non-fissionable radioisotope, like those used in medicine. For the nut heads worried about radioactivity in your home, I suggest you throw out all your smoke detectors. They all use a small amount of radioactive americium.
The two major concerns I can see here are shelf life and power. You can keep an Alkaline battery without use for years. This, it doesn't matter if you use it or not, it's battery life is going to be dropping. Also, it has limits on it's power output, more so then other types of batteries.
I threw out all my smoke detectors, but I think the aliens can still hear me. The aluminum foil hats won't help anymore, the voices won't get out of my head.
You need to drill a small hole into your skull so the voices can drain out naturally.
Similar, but there are certainly differences. NASA uses a Plutonium byproduct created by the US gov't during the Cold War. They haven't made more since the 80's.
This tech must be different. Mizzou has their own research reactor, but I don't think that they're creating Plutonium-238 for this. It's apparently a very expensive and time consuming process.
That said, these aren't going to be batteries we'll be able to pick up at the local 7-11, so who knows what they'll cost?
God bless americum
I'm sure that in 1985 plutonium is available at every corner drug store.
Error in fact. This is not a radiothermal generator and does not use a thermocouple. This battery draws current directly from beta decay.
hi,
I think this will be a good thing, if it comes out....
About the Cancer Persons i can only say: we live because of SUN(Big nuclear thing)
@ naveen - actually we live because our planet's magnetic fields keep us protected from the nasty radiation and solar energy of the Sun. But I do agree with you that people or more afraid of nuclear technology than they need to be. You'd receive more radiation from using your microwave than you would living next to a (responsibly maintained) nuclear reactor all your life.
I don't understand why a wii remote costs so much, yet doesn't have a rechargeable battery =/
exactly.
if this works atleast i can use my mobile without charging for couple of days and my laptop for full 24hrs gaming.
but i still fully doubt about the safety of using nuclear batteries
Quit being so paranoid. My love for nuclear power almost rivals my love for Google.
Someone needs to come up with another name for them rather than "nuclear batteries" or there is going to be a whole segment of society that reacts this way.
"Fluffy Bunnies?" "Dilithium Crystals?" "iOrganic Cells?"
How about radioactive batteries?
Or nucular cells?
What about nukeurcell?
That's what SHE said.
How bout we develop nuclear batteries for electric cars?
does anyone know why they are not in electric cars? that seems like a brilliant idea.
"...and in traffic news, on the outer-loop, there was a 10-car holocaust. That brings the total number of holocausts for the area to 25 so far this year. According to the NTSB, drunk driving is the second leading cause of automobile-related holocausts involving males aged 18 to 25".
My guess is they (currently) do not produce nearly enough current to power a car and the cost of the isotopes would probably also have something to do with it given the huge cost of buying even tiny amounts of medical radioactive isotopes. Not to mention, most radioisotopes are controlled by the government, even the very low activity ones.
@noname That comment was so far above "Highest Ranked" that there needs to be a new rank created just for it.
Of course, there would have to be disposable because there would be no way to recharge a radioisotope battery. I bet people would love for these to get into our water supply.
I don't know much about rechargeable batteries, but I'm pretty sure you would have to throw them out long before the 1,000,000th charge. And by the time these are ready to be thrown out, they'll mostly be depleted as far as I can tell.
"It's only wafer thin!"
Now where have I heard that before?....
in bed?
At the unveiling of the new Dell Adamo? (seriously, the thing is as thick as a USB port...)
Are you *sure* you mean "volatile"?
Yes....look it up.
A cell that has a tendency to vaporise seems fairly useless, especially since computers have a tendency of getting hot.
All I can say is "it's about damn time." I have waiting for betavoltaics for a long time. They will transform the world. Of course, it is imperative that they be absolutely failsafe and have a recycle requirement (with perhaps a steep fee that is refunded when turned in), but I can't wait until these are large and safe enough to power electronics, and cars. I am sure this would have already happened if they had not been so heavily controlled, and Jimmy Carter had not prevented us from recycling nuclear waste, and they had the same meteoric development advances as consumer electronics. So there's still a long way to go, not the least of which is convincing luddites that this is much safer and better for the environment than most forms of producing electrical power, and economically feasible and reliable, unlike windmills and solar power, but hopefully within 20 years we will have clean, safe, and cheap energy.
Your Wiimotes kill a pair of AA batteries in a week? That's a shame. I'd hate to see how quickly they lose their charge when the Wii is on instead of collecting dust.
29th!
Now children can do science fair projects that recreate Chernobyl! Nuclear meltdown models...how fun would that be ;)
@Quantum' As many times as I have down-ranked you I have to give you thumbs up here.
For those who didn't already use Google Translate...
nostomo said: "Looking forward to this product become a reality as soon as possible"
jimminy replied: "Shut the f^ck off! This is not a Chinese website"
Dang! i wish I could wire my brain into Google translate...
这就是她所说的话！
你们都是同性恋！叽叽喳喳的胜利！