Scientists in the UK have managed to develop the world's first carbon-14 diamond battery that could power low-energy devices such as satellite communications devices for over 5,000 years.
The battery is made of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 surrounded by a thin layer of synthetic diamond. When carbon-14 decays, electrons are released. The diamond acts like a semiconductor and converts these electrons into electricity. Since carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,700 years, scientists expect the battery to last for millennia.
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA) and the University of Bristol led the development, partly due to the former's work in fusion energy. However, the pThe possible uses are diverse.
Diamond batteries could power pacemakers, hearing aids, watches, computer chips – any low-power device – in environments where frequent battery changes are not possible.
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Engineers could also use the batteries to power communications equipment on spacecraft like Voyager 1, the furthest man-made object in space. NASA launched the satellite in 1977 and it is still sending data back to Earth. However, its performance is only expected to last until 2036. The computer aboard Voyager 1 is also nuclear-powered, except that its battery uses the isotope plutonium-238, which has a half-life of just 87.7 years. If the probe had been equipped with a carbon-14 diamond battery, it would have been able to transmit its findings back home for thousands of years.
Voyager 1 is currently floating in space, 15 billion miles from Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Diamond batteries offer a safe and sustainable way to provide continuous microwatt power,” said Sarah Clark from the UKAEA.
The short-wave radiation from decaying carbon-14 poses no risk – it is completely absorbed by the diamond shell, the researchers said. The battery can also be recycled at the end of its life – if someone is still there by then!
The diamond part of the battery was grown at UKAEA's Culham Campus near Oxford using a purpose-built plasma deposition facility. The carbon-14 was obtained from graphite blocks, a readily available byproduct of nuclear fission reactors.
While still early days, Tom Scott, materials professor at the University of Bristol, said it was exploring industry partnerships for possible commercialization in the future.
Scott led the team that began the first experiments with diamond batteries in 2016. As a result of this research, he even founded a company, Arkenlight.
“The next decade is about improving energy performance and increasing production,” Scott said.
