Almost eternal battery

How often and constantly discharged battery, on our favorite boom box or player. Now some people have a constant fear that the favorite gadget will be discharged in the city, and we will remain without communication with the outside world and friends. Is it funny? To someone, yes, but for someone it’s just a tragedy. And if we tell you that it will not be necessary to constantly recharge batteries and all sorts of batteries that were so necessary for radio receivers operating on transistors. Do not believe me? But the future is near – this year the first nuclear miniature battery appeared, as it is also called a “nuclear battery”, which can work for at least fifty years.

Creation of a “nuclear battery”

In an important industry such as nuclear, important discoveries are constantly occurring, and now something revolutionary has happened – soon there will be no longer a prototype, but a working battery based on the beta-radiation process (conversion into electrical energy). At the same time, nickel isotope 63 is used, which can supply any electronic device with power.

According to one of the creators of the device – it’s not just a battery, but a whole “nuclear alternating voltage generator with a long life”. Do not be afraid of the word “nuclear”, such a battery is completely safe for humans. Beta-radiation of this device is soft, and the case of the device is able to easily detain electrons.

The piezoelectric crystal converts the energy of nuclear half-life into the energy of a mechanical oscillation, which in turn becomes electrical energy. The device is extremely useful and promising, it can work very long time, has a significant temperature range: it can withstand very high temperatures (up to + 200 degrees Celsius) and low (-100 degrees Celsius). A significant plus is its small size: in centimeters – 1×0.5×0.5.

What is Nickel-63

Such an isotope as Ni 63 does not exist in nature, it can be created artificially exclusively in the laboratory. Scientists of some countries have already learned to receive low-enriched nickel, in which the 63rd isotope is contained in an amount of only 20%. Of such a substance, a qualitative battery cannot be created. But, beginning in 2016, at one nuclear enterprise they came up with a technology that could enrich it up to 80%.

The method of creating the radionuclide Ni 63 includes several stages:

• Creating an enriched target from nickel 62;
• Its irradiation in a reactor;
• Enrichment of irradiated products up to Ni 63.

Possible applications:

• As a power source of some types of sensors that can not be regularly serviced, in remote regions of the Far North and the Arctic;
• In technology intended for aircraft construction and space vehicles, including for exploration of outer space;
• In the nuclear industry;
• For nuclear power plants;
• In control systems, security in the border areas;
• Submarines;
• Defense industry;
• Transport;
• Medicine.

To date, a number of medical clinics in Switzerland have already become interested in such “nuclear batteries” manufactured by Rosatom – in their opinion, such devices are ideal for work in pacemakers.