New battery technology...

Cobbydaler · 07-10-2007, 18:53

Betavoltaic batteries could power your laptop for 30 years!

And they're non-toxic when exhausted, so don't need special disposal...

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Betavoltaics generate power when an electron strikes a particular interface between two layers of material. The Process uses beta electron emissions that occur when a neutron decays into a proton which causes a forward bias in the semiconductor. This makes the betavoltaic cell a forward bias diode of sorts, similar in some respects to a photovoltaic (solar) cell. Electrons scatter out of their normal orbits in the semiconductor and into the circuit creating a usable electric current.

Link

Delta Whiskey · 07-10-2007, 19:07

Very interesting. I wonder if they will see commercial release though, given that it's the U.S. Air Force funding the project.

Cobbydaler · 07-10-2007, 19:09

Well, the last sentence of the article says:

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If all goes well plans are for these cells to reach store shelves in about 2 to 3 years.

TheNorm · 07-10-2007, 19:29

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Originally Posted by Cobbydaler

Betavoltaic batteries ...

Interesting, but this will raise a few eyebrows amongst airport security staff:

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...use radioisotopes as the energy source...

You know and I know that this is as far removed from a nuclear bomb as a match is from a volcano, but...

Shaun · 07-10-2007, 20:19

Googled them and the fist hit - a hoax. Now I don't know what to believe

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/1...voltaic-b.html

http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,...331777b,00.htm

Cobbydaler · 07-10-2007, 20:25

The technology has been around for a while:

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Betavoltaics, the method that the new battery uses, has been around for half a century, but its usefulness was limited due to its low energy yields. The new battery technology makes its successful gains by dramatically increasing the surface area where the current is produced. Instead of attempting to invent new, more reactive materials, Fauchet's team focused on turning the regular material's flat surface into a three-dimensional one.

From a University of Rochester press release in 2005...

Shaun · 07-10-2007, 20:32

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Originally Posted by Cobbydaler

The technology has been around for a while:

From a University of Rochester press release in 2005...

ZDnet says this about them.

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Lastly, they're not very good batteries. Even the latest devices, which are very clever in the way they saturate a porous structure with the gas and thus usefully capture quite a large number of the energetic electrons, have an energy density of the order of twenty five watts per kilo. Lithium ion batteries, the sort you have in your laptop, manage 1.8 kilowatts per kilo. That's 72 times more bang per gram. Do you fancy carrying a battery 72 times heavier than the one you have at the moment, especially if it's hotter than a sixty watt light bulb?

Cobbydaler · 07-10-2007, 20:49

I really don't know who to believe in these blogs...

This from a comment to the ZDnet blog:

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Comparing the 1800 W of the Li-ion battery with the 25 W of this battery is wrong. A laptop need less than 25 W to operate, therefore 1 kg of this battery will do. A Li-ion battery only has about 52 Wh of energy while this battery has an "endless" amount of energy. And therefore 1 kg of battery can supply 25 W during an infinite time. A Li-ion battery can supply the 1800 W only for seconds or 25 W for about 2 hours.