Diamond battery with a lifespan of more than 5,000 years uses nuclear waste

Artificial diamonds that generate electricity from nuclear waste promise to provide a steady source of energy for thousands of years.

Diamond batteries provide long-term energy while solving the problem of nuclear waste disposal. Illustration: Mining.com.

Scientists have found a way to turn nuclear waste into an energy source by converting radioactive isotopes into artificial diamonds that can be used as permanent batteries, Science Alert reported. These diamonds can generate electricity, providing energy for thousands of years, thanks to their composition with a long half-life.

“This direct power source has no moving parts, no emissions, and no maintenance,” said geochemist Tom Scott of the University of Bristol, UK. “By encapsulating radioactive material inside diamonds, we solve the long-term problem of converting nuclear waste into nuclear batteries and a clean energy supply.”

Scott’s team developed a prototype diamond battery using an unstable isotope of nickel (nickel-63). Nickel-63 has a half-life of approximately 100 years, allowing the prototype battery to retain about half its charge for 100 years. However, the researchers are now looking to a longer-lived material, the isotope carbon-14.

The first generation of Magnox nuclear reactors in the UK, which operated between the 1950s and 1970s, used large blocks of graphite to sustain the nuclear reaction. During use, the graphite blocks gradually became radioactive, creating an unstable isotope of carbon, carbon-14.

The last Magnox reactor closed in 2015. After decades of operation, it left behind a huge amount of nuclear waste. Today, 95,000 tons of graphite are stored safely and closely monitored, and are still highly radioactive. It takes a long time for it to decay, since carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. With the technology Scott’s team proposes, carbon-14 batteries have enormous potential.

"Carbon-14 isotopes were chosen as radioactive materials because they emit short-range radiation that is easily absorbed by solid matter," said Neil Fox, a researcher on the project. "Normally, ingesting or touching these isotopes would be dangerous, but when they are safely contained in diamond, no short-range radiation is released. Diamond is the hardest material known, and we can use that property to protect people."

The new technology was shared by the team during a lecture called "Ideas that Change the World" at the University of Bristol last week, but they have not yet released details of the invention.

"A typical AA battery weighing 20 grams will store about 700 Joules of energy per gram. If used continuously, it will run out in 34 hours," said researcher Scott. "A test diamond battery containing one gram of carbon-14 isotope provides 15 Joules per day, continuously for 5,730 years. This brings the total energy collected to 2.7 tera Joules."

Diamond batteries made from radioactive materials could be used in electronic devices that do not require large amounts of electricity but need a continuous source of energy, such as pacemakers, satellites, drones or even spacecraft.

According to VNE