Are nuclear batteries the future (if they won’t kill us)?

Whenever your mobile phone would run out of juice during crucial moments, didn’t you ever wish that someday, someone would invent a battery that would last not just for a few hours, days, months but for the rest of your life? But what if it would mean not having children anymore and maybe potential death from radiation exposure? Well if you will choose battery life over your own life, then there might be good news for you (and maybe bad news for your loved ones)!

A nuclear battery developed by two researchers from the University of Missouri doesn’t use the usual lithium ion cells that have caused you much frustration at one time or another. The battery uses the beta voltaic process, which generates electricity from beta radiation. So the battery doesn’t really use nuclear fission but it does emit radioactive elements. Beta radiation, while not the safest, is supposedly much easier to stop just by using a thin piece of aluminium. So this means you need to use a casing for the battery that is about 2 millimetres thick and should never be dropped (which rules out about half of cellphone users). There is still the risk of cancer, but hey, no need for charging anymore right?

Betavoltaic batteries have been used before, particularly in the earlier versions of the pacemaker. The two researchers, Baek Kim and Jae Kwon, added water to the equation, which absorbs some of the beta radiation and also splits the water molecules to increase efficiency. They said that this might eventually be of use for applications like car batteries and maybe even spacecraft.

Just don’t expect nuclear batteries in mobile phones anytime soon. It’s highly unlikely that it will ever be commercially produced, as even the common lithium-ion ones have already posed dangers to some users, with exploding and overheating batteries. But it was nice thinking of a phone that would never need charging right? Until you suddenly think of infertility and cancer and death.

VIA: Extreme Tech