This tiny radioactive battery can last 50 years without recharging -- and it's coming in 2025

[Mosby]

Chinese scientists have built a nuclear battery that can produce power for up to 50 years without being recharged. The technology, which contains a radioactive isotope, or version of nickel, as its power source, will be the first of its kind available for general purchase, Betavolt representatives said on Jan. 8 in a translated statement.

The new battery, dubbed "BV100", is smaller than a coin, measuring 0.6 x 0.6 x 0.2 inches (15 x 15 x 5 millimeters), and generates 100 microwatts of power. If approved for use in devices like smartphones, future generations of the battery would ultimately remove the need to ever charge them, company representatives said.

But Juan Claudio Nino, a materials scientist at the University of Florida, is skeptical. Its size means it contains relatively little radioisotope and it produces just 0.01% of the electricity required. "Certainly it's within the range for a pacemaker or perhaps a passive wireless sensor. But in its current form, it just doesn't have enough power to run a cell phone," he said.

https://www.livescience.com/technology/engineering/betavolt-bv100-radioactive-battery-can-last-50-years-coming-in-2025

[SarahD]

1. Bit of trivia about nickel 59 isotope.

That machine they have at the airport, the one that detects drugs or explosives, uses nickel 59 to help figure out exactly what kind of drugs are in your suitcase.

[NNadir]

2. The Voyager Spacecraft beyond the edge of the solar system has been operating nearly 50 years on a nuclear battery.

Voyager (and many other spacecraft) operates on ²³⁸Pu, which was in pacemaker batteries back in the 1960's.

Nickel-59 is a poor choice for a radionuclide power source. It is obtained by neutron bombardment of ⁵⁸Ni most likely in the presence of nickel's other four stable isotopes, meaning it requires isotopic separation to be relatively pure, either before or after bombardment. Isotopic separations are expensive and energy intensive.. (It also can be made by proton bombardment of ⁵⁸Ni, via a ⁵⁸Cu intermediate . Its half-life is very long 76,000 years meaning it offers low specific activity and thus low power, and decays by electron capture, meaning that its energy comes in the form gamma radiation (1073 keV) which is not easily thermalized in a small device.

Something's wrong with this picture.

A better choice, one that was first used in the 1950's, is an Sr-90 battery.