Do you remember graphene batteries? They’re not among us yet, but a few years ago it looked like graphene would be the messiah of our devices. But what if there are batteries that charge in five seconds, or news from Samsung and Huawei are investigating batteries with twice the capacity thanks to this material?

The truth is that graphene is not yet available on a mass scale, but new solutions for batteries are already being explored. Especially, An atomic battery that will (almost) never need charging and is ready for the consumer market.

First atomic battery in the consumer market

Currently batteries have improved their capacity compared to a few years ago. This is not thanks to graphene, but to a new arrangement of internal components. Companies managed to double their capacity. In addition to increasing capacity, the industry has increasingly focused on faster charging, both wired and wireless.

But the underlying technology remains the same and we haven’t seen any major changes that would allow us to have more efficient batteries in our mobiles and phones. Atomic energy could fuel graphene.

Chinese company Betavolt Technology recently announced that they have successfully developed a battery powered by atomic energy. And no, it’s not too big but Dimensions 15 x 15 x 5 millimeters. Think of a computer key, it has roughly this base but is much thinner.

The energy is produced through the natural decay of the radioactive isotope nickel-63. The half-life of this isotope is approximately 100 years. and produces energy during this time.

Because this is a very slow process Its creators claim that it is completely safe It is a stabilizing diamond layer to prevent it from triggering a violent reaction and to make the battery more advanced.

In fact, in this image we can see the structure of this battery, with an outer layer, a contact system on one side and a contact system on the other. an interior composed of alternating layers of nickel-63 and diamond semiconductor. This semiconductor also allows the system to operate stably at temperatures between +60 and 120 degrees Celsius.

Betavolt designed this atomic battery to last approximately 50 years without power or any other stimulation, which occurs naturally within the system thanks to the semi-decay of the isotope. The problem is that the amount of energy it produces is… minimal.

Currently BV100 (that is the name of the invention) provides 100 microwatts of energy at 3 volts. They are low in energy, but many of these batteries can be used seriously or in parallel to power devices such as drones, medical devices such as pacemakers, cochlear implants, or smart sensors.

They are responsible now They are already working on a version that can deliver 1 watt of poweras well as other similar batteries that use isotopes such as strontium 90, deuterium and promethium-147. It would not be unreasonable to think that these atomic batteries, many of them in series and with increasing power, could be in our mobile phones in the future. They would no longer be a cheap component at all.

Cover image | betavolt

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