When traditional batteries lose their capacity after a few years, scientists are working to develop batteries that can operate without recharging for up to ten years. Such solutions, based on nuclear technology, promise to be safe and efficient.
The global race for the “perpetual battery”
The limitations of lithium-ion batteries are becoming more and more apparent, and the search for their successors has long been underway. Current batteries are decreasing in performance every year, need frequent recharging, and the environmental damage from their extraction and disposal is increasing. The alternative to traditional batteries are nuclear variants that can operate for decades without needing to be recharged.
China has already achieved the first successes in this area. Betavolt has launched a coin-sized nuclear battery called the BV100, which uses nickel-63 as a radioactive source and has a lifespan of up to 50 years. South Korea has also taken steps forward, with scientists at the Daegu-Kengbuk Institute of Science and Technology unveiling a prototype battery based on carbon-14.
How nuclear batteries work
Nuclear batteries work on the principle of betavoltaic technology, which uses beta radiation – high-energy electrons that are blocked absolutely safely by a thin aluminium layer. Such batteries consist of two main components: a radioactive emitter and a semiconductor absorber. When the emitter decays, the beta particles interact with the absorber, generating a small but constant electric current. While such a current is not yet capable of providing an “eternal smartphone,” the technology already has many potential applications.
Nuclear battery applications
The technology has many potential applications in a variety of fields:
- Medical implants such as pacemakers.
- Sensors operating in hard-to-reach places.
- Space missions and deep-sea research stations.
- Future robotics systems.
Technical limitations
At the moment, the capacity of such batteries is still quite low. The Korean prototype generates about 20.75 per square centimetre-just 0.4% of the power of a conventional calculator. However, for energy-saving devices such as pacemakers or environmental sensors, this is quite sufficient.