Penny-size nuclear battery keeps going and going

(Credit: University of Missouri)

Scientists at the University of Missouri are developing a small nuclear battery that they say can hold a million times more charge than standard batteries.

The radioisotope battery, being developed by Jae Kwon of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and other researchers, is the size and thickness of a penny.

That makes it smaller than nuclear batteries used in space and military applications. Kwon says it might shrink to less than the thickness of a human hair if the right materials are used.

The battery is designed to drive micro/nanoelectromechanical systems (M/NEMS). Such devices include labs on a chip, and biological and chemical sensors.

The nuclear battery produces power from charged particles released by radioactive decay. It also uses a liquid semiconductor material, rather than a solid one, to minimize damage to the battery.

Kwon said the technology is safe. "Nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pacemakers, space satellites and underwater systems," he noted.

The team has applied for a provisional patent on the battery.

[kingrah1]

YAY! THATS MY SCHOOL!!

[Michichael]

Woot! My laser gun is that much closer to fruition!

[calculatorwatch]

awesome! but how expensive are these to make? and will it really not give me cancer?

[galeso]

No cancer if you the optional 1 foot thick lead shield.

[discern]

Sigh. I'll just wait on the sidelines for someone else to point out that you used a dime to illustrate that something was penny-sized. Oh, and that it's penny-sized, not "penny-size."

[calculatorwatch]

isn't this comment a bit oxymoronic?

[jaguar717]

No, just moronic, because the battery is bit larger than the dime, making it about penny-sized.

The "penny-size" is sloppy though. Makes me think of all the tards just dropping tenses entirely ("Last weekend I wash my car", "That's not what you're suppose to do", etc).

[bcstringham]

No, the "battery" is much closer to a quarter. easy to see, it is at least twice the diameter of the dime.

[WelshMullet]

Can it be recharged?

[Someone-else]

Why would you want it?
If the "million times the charge" is true, it's enough to last more than the device it's powering without recharges...

[Phategod1]

If someone lets say sets it on fire would it take out a city block?

[sunthedeep]

nuclear bombs work by having a very high density of radioactive heavy metal isotopes in a small chamber to create a chain reaction (neither of these conditions probably exist in this battery). Honestly, I am pretty sure that setting fire to a standard nuke would not set it off. (BTW Potassium is a radioactive element, and is necessary for us to survive. see http://www.rerowland.com/K40.html)

[solitare_pax]

Keep in mind, there are radioactive isotopes in smoke detectors as well - hence the need to replace them every few years as the element (Americium I believe) does decay. And the radium in those glow-in-the-dark watch dials.

But you raise a valid point - what would the proper disposal of a nuclear battery be?

[jaguar717]

The proper disposal would be about the same as for a smoke detector: throw the damn thing away because the tiny tiny amount of radioactive material has decayed to near-nothing.

I don't know whether there are a ton of Luddite trolls out there or if people are just that dense. Any mention of anything invisible and it's time to set off the alarm bells. Are people that unaware of how orders of magnitude work?

[mbenedict]

@jaguar717:

The half-life of Am-241 is extremely long (over 430 years). It does NOT decay "to near nothing" during a smoke detector's service life. A 10-year old smoke detector is pretty much as radioactive as a brand new one.

Smoke detectors can be safely disposed because the tiny amount of radioactive material used is well contained. But if you've cracked open your old smoke detector because you think its Am-241 has "decayed"... well lets just say that's not a very smart move.

Plus the issue is not just about radioactivity, but also about toxicity. Many radioactive materials are extremely toxic if accidentally ingested or inhaled -- even when they no longer produce a harmful amount of radiation. You don't want to just "throw the damn thing" away if it will end up contaminating, say, your local water supply.

[afterhours]

@sunthedeep, K (potassium) has a radioactive isotope, but your statement will be taken by the flunkies of general chem to suggest that all potassium is radioactive -- very much not the case. We have some exceptionally small amount of many of the radioactive isotopes of the major elements necessary for life in our bodies (Carbon 14 is another example). Fortunately for our cells, very very little of any of that is radioactive. However -- I'm not blasting you for stating something important enough that people should know it... we live in a very radioactive world. Tin foil hat types will take issue, but then again, one has to wonder what they are trying to protect with the Reynolds Wrap if they don't use it. Same would be true of Phategod1 -- no understanding of how nuclear weapons work, but then again -- a dirty bomb doesn't have to create fission to make a city block uninhabitable. All you need is some clicks on a geiger counter to seed enough fear, uncertainty and doubt into a science-illiterate public to take control of them. We're doomed as an intelligent species, but that's ok. I'm sure there is something on T.V. to distract us from our selves.

[karpenterskids]

May I ask why the picture was taken next to a dime and not a penny?

[jaguar717]

Because the picture was provided by the developers; they didn't send out samples for people to review and take their own pictures of. So a reporter's thought process probably goes something like this:

battery > dime
penny > dime
battery ~ penny

"Penny-sized battery" makes for a more concise title than "Slightly-bigger-than-dime-sized battery".

[karpenterskids]

Good point. Thanks. :)

[Slick1of2]

All I know is that I don't want one of these things anywhere near my crotch.

[MCOjerry]

ROFLMAO!

[setjeff15081947]

DITTO! To both "Slick1of2" and especially "MCOjerry".

[rdnetto]

Does anyone know how much power this battery provides? Given its size, I expect it'll probably be something like 100 mA at around 2V.

[terminalblue]

yea thats what i wanted to know too, but if you read TFA it doesnt even state it there. if it could power an mp3 player that would be pretty awesome.

[jaguar717]

How in the world could you even speculate that? It could just as easily be an order of magnitude lower or higher.

Power for tinier devices is nice (a hearing aid that'll work forever), or for things that need long term power and are difficult to access (pacemakers, remote transmitters for communications or animal-tracking equipment), or ones that are limited by batteries' very poor energy density (predator drones, etc).

But there would be HUGE benefits for the day to day things that everyone uses because of sheer scale. Smart phones and laptops that could run for weeks or months would be another communication revolution, because as powerful as the devices have gotten they're still very limited by power--batteries are just terrible in terms of energy per weight/size.

[jezzur]

No way, are you crazy? You aren't factoring in the depth... 300 mA at least.

[CASizemore]

Okay, powering a cellphone, mp3 or other easily recharged device via a one time nuclear battery use battery is pretty dumb.

But damn these are pretty cool for powering smaller space probes and other devices.

[joyofsomeone]

Actually, if you power any device with a battery that never needs charging, you can get rid of any part of it that's required for charging. Take a cellphone, for instance. They've got quite chunky battery, in comparison to this nuclear one, and have you seen how much room a charger takes up in packaging? More than the phone, normally! Cut this out, and you've get a helluva lot less packing, less devices draining power from a socket, AND a smaller device. Win win win?

[make_or_break]

How scalable is this and still provide a good safety margin in terms of public health and safety?

There are MILLIONS of reasons rolling in this morning's commute that could benefit from technology device, much more than from lithium-ion battery packs like the Tesla runs with. Talk about beating down one's carbon footprint with a potentially REAL, lifelong lasting alternative that's far more compact a package than current in-place battery tech allows. Of course if suddenly some cretin can take a battery from a car (or many from multiple cars) and somehow make an IND (improvised nuclear device) then perhaps this train of thought is RIP.

[viper396]

@CASizemore, Exactly how is a Cellphone, MP3 or other device that never needs recharging dumb??? Are you saying you prefer devices that constantly need to be plugged in and recharged? Did you put any thought in before you made your dumb comment?

[boondock_saint]

my laser gun goes pew pew

[flareback]

Wait, they have nuclear powered battery's?

[regulator1956]

batteries

[richard993]

Radioactive materials are in constant decay, that means that we are wasting several billion gigawats of power by not taking advantage of this. And why don't we dispose of these materials exactly where we got them from? why do we need to put them into landfills? The answer is simple, the mining industry is great when it comes to plundering natural resources, but they are too greedy to put them back because it will cost them more money.

[Zarland]

This is a great concept. A long lasting battery can potentially change the face of today?s mobile devices. However, there are many safety issues need to be addressed before this type of batteries can be widely deployed.

Just imagine having one of these batteries in your phone, and having your phone up to your ear right by the brain for more than few hundred minutes per month. If this thing can replace the heavy laptop batteries, they will be on your laps and ever close to your precious sperm/egg centers. What if kids and animal swallowed one of these nuclear batteries?the last thing you want is for them to spew up radioactive juices.

[viper396]

Please, you hear the word "nuclear" and "Radiation" and assume the worst. This isn't Chernobly like radiation where people have to worry. Do you have any idea how much radiation the average person already receives from the electronic devices in their home? This nuclear battery is as dangerous as a smoke detector. (Which, if you don't know, usually contains radioactive americium)

"kids eating batteries??..radioactive or not, if they were eating batteries they've got problems. The world shouldn't have to avoid technical progress on the off chance that some individuals, or their kids, are on the shallow end of the gene pool and may hurt themselves with it.

[dreamer77dd]

It sounds great to not need to charge something but nuclear waste is not easy to clean up. think about about this being in are water supply,in the ocean or fish eating it.i really would not want to have 3 eyes on my fish. It would be cool to have a laptop with this in it or lights you never have to turn off. Takes the idea of a battery car to a new level. if you it was used like a USB cable and was able to go into many different types of devices after finished with them that be good. I am just not sure about the re-using them or the waste part of it.

[rpvitiello]

well as someone posted a link above, some radioactive material is in everything naturally. If this exposes you to no more radiation than "normal" it is no more harmful than breathing.

And as for kids eating batteries, um i think that is a bad thing no matter WHAT kind of battery. nuclear or not! if your kid swallows a current AA battery you are going to be in the ER!

[jezzur]

Public service announcement - don't eat batteries. Thank you. Performance enhancing substances = cheating anyway.

[steel_on_target]

Quarter sized plus, not penny not dime, you all are arguing about the wrong concept. Good down sizing feint by the admen, by keeping discussion on miniscule difference in dime versus penny when its quarter plus. Its working for them obviously.
Why worry yourself about this tiny radioactive source? Look at what the Nips have done with Nagi and Hiro which were ground zero and now crowded metropoli which don't appear to glow in the dark. With all the background radiation we have, these arguments sound like smokers talking to one another about their risk of brain cancer from cell phones.
Plan to use these batteries in my farmland projects in Greenland where land is cheap for now, but you have to bid against the Chinese. Not mentioned in the article, is a key advantage along with life span, as these nuclear batteries output are not nearly degraded by cold as our present types.

[viper396]

For all the intelligence you attempted to convey in your comment you only degrade yourself by using derogatory slang for the Japanese. You're not as smart as you pretend to be.

[steel_on_target]

Regards power output, which is signigicant just think of upsizing and the term "In Series" to get an inkling of the potential. When connected to micro starting capacitors, the concept of Laser pistol is already there. We can alread blow a hole the size of an ink cartridge through 10 inches of oak at 100 meters. Don't worry Chicken littles, the Kenyan will regulate and cap und tax it into obscurity, then resurrect it with Big Government subsidies. Don't expect the government to allow the Second Amendment to cover this, it has already been decided. Only for Big Brother. Not allowed to say any more.

[disco-legend-zeke]

but... other than a nice picture, there are no specs... volts? ...current?

also... its a cell. a battery, by definition, contains two or more cells.

[PiRh0]

I'm still stuck on "Penny-Sized" when the comparison image we are given shows larger then a dime!

jaguar717 Said: (snip)"
battery > dime
penny > dime
battery ~ penny".

however I would have to say that makes just as much sense as: witches float, and ducks float, so if someone weighs the same as a duck then they must be a witch!
OR
battery > dime
silver dollar > dime
battery ~ silver dollar

[Dalkorian]

PiRh0 turned me into a newt!