A diamond battery that never dies has been invented by British scientists. But it will still be several years until we can throw away our charging cables.
The battery is made up of lab-grown diamonds which encase a slice of the radioactive material carbon-14. Diamond’s semiconductor properties convert the radioactivity into electricity, the scientists say, while its ultra-hardness protects the battery and prevents the radioactivity from escaping and causing harm.
Carbon-14 is used by archaeologists to date fossils and loses just half of its radioactivity every 5,700 years. If a diamond battery had existed at the dawn of human civilisation around 4,000 BC, it would still have around half of its charge left.
Specialist fusion-research equipment was used to grow the bespoke diamond around a chunk of carbon-14. The battery is the size of a conventional wrist watch battery at 10mm across and just 0.5mm thick. It functions similarly to solar panels but instead of using light particles, it captures fast-moving electrons from within the diamond structure, says BBC News.
“Diamond batteries offer a safe, sustainable way to provide continuous microwatt levels of power,” said Sarah Clark, director of tritium fuel cycle at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
“They are an emerging technology that uses a manufactured diamond to safely encase small amounts of carbon-14.”
These batteries could have a range of uses, the scientists say, including powering deep space missions and satellites on which it is hard to change the battery. Running healthcare devices such as pacemakers or hearing aids is another goal of the developers.
Fatimah Sannie, senior process engineer at UKAEA who worked on the project, said: “The diamond battery would revolutionise the battery industry. Bye-bye to lithium-ion waste batteries and bye-bye to constant surgery to change pacemakers. The future would be us using diamond batteries in almost everything."