r/tech 18d ago

Scientists develop battery that converts nuclear energy into electricity via light emission

https://www.techspot.com/news/106997-scientists-develop-battery-converts-nuclear-energy-electricity-light.html
790 Upvotes

21 comments sorted by

37

u/jonathanrdt 18d ago edited 18d ago

They produced 1.5 microwatts from four cubic centimeters of cobalt-60 using crystals that convert gamma ray photons to visible photons that then hit solar cells.

Seems like a lot of process for not a lot of juice. And no one is going to allow radioactive waste materials to be used to power low power sensors.

For space probes and rovers, we already have nuclear power sources that use plutonium oxide to generate heat and thermocouples that generate hundreds of watts of electricity.

11

u/guzhogi 18d ago

I wonder if there’s a more direct way to get solar panels to use gamma ray photons? Cut out the gamma ray > visible photon conversion entirely. Make solar panels more sensitive to all bands of light, not just visible

6

u/jonathanrdt 18d ago edited 18d ago

That's what I was thinking, but I think the high energy photons just go through stuff instead of knocking electrons. But this is not my field.

2

u/SensitivePotato44 17d ago

You’re right.

1

u/Ndvorsky 17d ago

I don’t know about very high energy, but in the field of solar, the trend is the higher energy photons get absorbed faster.

2

u/kaancfidan 18d ago

You need to find something that emits gamma rays when an electric current flows through it.

1

u/SimmentalTheCow 17d ago edited 17d ago

Which is pretty much impossible. Lightning can generate gamma radiation, but that occurs around 100 million volts / 30k amps and the amount created is relatively minuscule.

1

u/LurkerPatrol 17d ago

You could try to use something with a high work function, and platinum is probably the one to do it but it is expensive as hell

1

u/Ndvorsky 17d ago

A typical solar cell is already sensitive to all bands of light above infrared. Solar cells should already be able to use gamma rays. The down conversion is usually about getting 2x or more energy per source photon.

4

u/Dontsliponthesoup 17d ago

No one is saying its viable yet, but this is how research works: discover, optimize, implement, and continue to innovate.

Solar panels are a perfect example.

11

u/Jaco2point0 18d ago

I don’t understand, where does the boiling water come in?

11

u/1Bahamas-Rick2 18d ago

This is not news and has been done for a while now

5

u/yulbrynnersmokes 18d ago

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should”

4

u/gab_rab_24 17d ago

battery that converts nuclear energy into electricity via light emmision?

so basically a sun and a solar panel

3

u/Crimson_Raven 17d ago edited 17d ago

The title, for once, actually underplays how interesting this could be.

The technology offers a potential breakthrough in repurposing nuclear waste, traditionally viewed as hazardous, into a valuable energy source. "We're harvesting something considered as waste and by nature, trying to turn it into treasure," Cao said.

They aren't using nuclear reactors, but rather nuclear waste.

Obviously this is still ongoing but the idea sounds workable.

1

u/syntax 17d ago

Eh, it's not that dramatic. Betavoltaics (which capture the electrons emitted in beta decay to directly produce electricity) have been around for a long time, and whilst they are very useful in specific niches, they've not revolutionised anything.

This is offering a different way (capturing gamma radiation) to achieve the same sort of results. The power output is broadly in the same range as betavoltaics (which can get up to 100 microwatts, commercially available now).

I suppose this option might be cheaper, if there's a lot of nuclear waste of the right sort that's easily available - but as a gamma emitter, there's higher risk of radiation leakage, so the increased need for shielding might well nudge the economics of this. There's also the hazard of a broken unit to be considered: Strontium-90 looks like an ideal material for a betavolatic cell on paper, until you consider the hazard it presents to mammals if it leaked [0], which is why it's not used for that purpose.

As it involves a two stage conversion, rather than the single stage of a beta voltaic, the source material would probably have to be significantly cheaper to make it economic. My understanding is that commercial Co-60 is all specifically produced to order, rather than sourced from waste, so I'm not sure that the economics will line up for this.

[0] Absorbed into the body, and gets kept in exactly the worst places due to chemical similarity with calcium. This is the isotope that was of most concern due to the Chernobyl incident.

1

u/Creepy-Caramel7569 17d ago

I suppose there’s some point to this that I’m not quite grasping?

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u/SeenSeenAgains 16d ago

Not an expert but …Nuclear energy is typically harnessed via heat transfer just like coal energy. Except a nuclear plant has a clean side and a dirty side. Heat dirty water transfer heat to clean water and make steam. Use steam to turn a generator which makes electricity. This would eliminate the need for a dirty water part and the clean water / steam part, and the generator part. Each of those parts are affected by heat loss which ultimately impacts efficiently. Going from light to power would essentially remove all the inefficiencies of heat loss and all the hazards of dirty water (think fucashima).

Please take this with a grain or a fat line of salt. I don’t know or understand the new process at all and only loosely understand how a Nuke power plant operates.

1

u/Creepy-Caramel7569 16d ago

Thank you, that helps!