The 30 year power source...you got know it's gonna be Apple
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Scientists Invent 30 Year Continuous Power Laptop Battery
Your next laptop could have a continuous power battery that lasts for 30 years without a single recharge thanks to work being funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. The breakthrough betavoltaic power cells are constructed from semiconductors and use radioisotopes as the energy source. As the radioactive material decays it emits beta particles that transform into electric power capable of fueling an electrical device like a laptop for years.
Although betavoltaic batteries sound Nuclear they’re not, they’re neither use fission/fusion or chemical processes to produce energy and so (do not produce any radioactive or hazardous waste). 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.
The profile of the batteries can be quite small and thin, a porous silicon material is used to collect the hydrogen isotope tritium which is generated in the process. The reaction is non-thermal which means laptops and other small devices like mobile phones will run much cooler than with traditional lithium-ion power batteries. The reason the battery lasts so long is that neutron beta-decay into protons is the world's most concentrated source of electricity, truly demonstrating Einstein’s theory E=MC2.
The best part about these cells are when they eventually run out of power they are totally inert and non-toxic, so environmentalists need not fear these high tech scientific wonder batteries. If all goes well plans are for these cells to reach store shelves in about 2 to 3 years.
Won't that take a major headache away from portable computing.
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wow. Almost a too good to be true. 30 years of power (I'd be happy with 3 years since that's about as long as I use a laptop) and environmentally friendly?
Doc, what's the source of the article? Surely not a scientific journal, with the grammatical errors. (OK, I got it - Next Energy News or another of the dozens of sites and blogs that are copying the same inaccurate source article)
I call BS - or at least sloppy and sensationalistic reporting.
The main uses for betavoltaics is for a tiny trickle of juice that has to last 10 years or more (satellites and spacecraft, hence the Air Force reference), and in the glow-in-the-dark spots of a wristwatch or a gun site.
You already have something similar in your home BTW -- it's called a smoke detector. There is a small amount of radioactive material, usually Californium, in a chamber that emits particles on a predictable basis. If there is smoke in the chamber, then the particles are interrupted by the smoke, the receptor notices the drop in energy, and the alarm sounds,
The hydrogen radioisotope Tritium is, by definition, radioactive, so the statements
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a porous silicon material is used to collect the hydrogen isotope tritium which is generated in the process
and
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so (do not produce any radioactive or hazardous waste)... when they eventually run out of power they are totally inert and non-toxic
would seem to be contradictory. (Tritium is defined as toxic over a certain # of parts per billion in the water supply, BTW)
The news is not new, betavoltaic batteries were invented decades ago, and the concept of the amorphous silicon "sponge" to contain the Tritium gas in 2005 -- not by the Air Force however, but by researchers at the Universities of Rochester and Toronto
The most telling thing though is that the article got it totally backwards! The Tritium is not a waste product that is captured in a silicon sponge material -- the Tritium is actually the fuel, and is stabilized and has the available surface are increased by being captured in the silicon sponge.
The half life of Tritium is 12 years, so the 30 year life is greatly exaggerated. It would mean "Reduces to 1/6th of the original output steadily over 30 years." (reputable science websites report 10-12 years life)
Press release from the National Science Foundation (excerpt)
"While producing as little as one-thousandth of the power of conventional chemical batteries, the new "BetaBattery" concept is more efficient and potentially less expensive than similar designs ..it could help power such hard-to-service, long-life systems as structural sensors on bridges, climate monitoring equipment and satellites...."The initial applications will be for remote or inaccessible sensors and devices where the availability of long-life power is critical," says Gadeken."
Last edited by CanadaRAM; Oct 2nd, 2007 at 09:23 AM.
If there is any truth to this, I'd hope that Apple and other vendors would all standardize on one battery design so we could bring our old battery along with us when we buy a new notebook. Would really suck if batteries with 25-27 years of life in them were ending up in landfills because we got a new battery with every new notebook purchased. The battery should be optional going forward.
But I'm highly skeptical. I'm just not that lucky. ;-)
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University of Missouri-Columbia scientists say they've developed a power cell capable of providing continuous power for years.
The scientists from the university's research reactor and the Qynergy Corp. say their discovery will create new capabilities for applications that require longer power life in compact, low volume containers. The cells have the potential of continuously generating small amounts of electricity for nearly 20 years.
"In our research, we were able to obtain an energy conversion efficiency of 11 percent, while the highest success to date had only been 5 percent," said David Robertson, associate director of research and education at research reactor.
The technology used in betavoltaic power cells is similar to solar power generation, but uses radioisotopes as the energy source, researchers said. The cells use isotopes that are fully contained within the power cell -- similar to the radioactive source found in many smoke detectors -- and can be used without external risk.
The technology transforms beta particles into electrical power with the capacity to generate electricity for years, depending on the energy and half-life of the isotope used.
The project was funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, Space Vehicles Directorate.
Silicon solution could lead to a truly long-life battery
New devices may provide power for decades
Using some of the same manufacturing techniques that produce microchips, researchers have created a porous-silicon diode that may lead to improved betavoltaics. Such devices convert low levels of radiation into electricity and can have useful lives spanning several decades.
Image: This is a scanning electron micrograph of the side view of the porous-silicon wafer as tested by the researchers. Credit: University of Rochester; BetaBatt, Inc
While producing as little as one-thousandth of the power of conventional chemical batteries, the new "BetaBattery" concept is more efficient and potentially less expensive than similar designs and should be easier to manufacture. If the new diode proves successful when incorporated into a finished battery, it could help power such hard-to-service, long-life systems as structural sensors on bridges, climate monitoring equipment and satellites.
The battery's staying power is tied to the enduring nature of its fuel, tritium, a hydrogen isotope that releases electrons in a process called beta decay. The porous-silicon semiconductors generate electricity by absorbing the electrons, just as a solar cell generates electricity by absorbing energy from incoming photons of light.
Supported by grants from the NSF Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of Rochester, the University of Toronto, Rochester Institute of Technology and BetaBatt, Inc. of Houston, Texas, describe their new diode in the May 13 issue of Advanced Materials.
Researchers have been attempting to convert radiation into electricity since the development of the transistor more than 50 years ago. Mastering the junctions between relatively electron-rich and electron-poor regions of semiconductor material (p-n junctions) led to many modern electronic products.
Yet, while engineers have been successful at capturing electromagnetic radiation with solar cells, the flat, thin devices have been unable to collect enough beta-decay electrons to yield a viable betavoltaic device.
The BetaBatt will not be the first battery to harness a radioactive source, or even the first to use tritium, but the new cell will have a unique advantage - the half-millimeter-thick silicon wafer into which researchers have etched a network of deep pores. This structure vastly increases the exposed surface area, creating a device that is 10 times more efficient than planar designs.
"The 3-D porous silicon configuration is excellent for absorbing essentially all the kinetic energy of the source electrons," says co-author Nazir Kherani of the University of Toronto. Instead of generating current by absorbing electrons at the outermost layer of a thin sheet, surfaces deep within these porous silicon wafers accommodate a much larger amount of incoming radiation. In early tests, nearly all electrons emitted during the tritium's beta decay were absorbed.
There were a number of practical reasons for selecting tritium as the source of energy, says co-author Larry Gadeken of BetaBatt - particularly safety and containment.
"Tritium emits only low energy beta particles (electrons) that can be shielded by very thin materials, such as a sheet of paper," says Gadeken. "The hermetically-sealed, metallic BetaBattery cases will encapsulate the entire radioactive energy source, just like a normal battery contains its chemical source so it cannot escape."
Even if the hermetic case were to be breached, adds Gadeken, the source material the team is developing will be a hard plastic that incorporates tritium into its chemical structure. Unlike a chemical paste, the plastic cannot not leak out or leach into the surrounding environment.
Researchers and manufacturers have been producing porous silicon for decades, and it is commonly used for antireflective coatings, light emitting devices, and photon filters for fiber optics. However, the current research is the first patented betavoltaic application for porous silicon and the first time that 3-D p-n diodes have been created with standard semiconductor industry techniques.
"The betavoltaic and photovoltaic applications of 3-D porous silicon diodes will result in an exciting arena of additional uses for this versatile material," says co-author Philippe Fauchet of the University of Rochester.
"This is the first time that uniform p-n junctions have been made in porous silicon, which is exciting from the point of view of materials science," says Fauchet. For example, because of its characteristics and photon sensitivity, each diode pore could serve as an individual detector, potentially creating an extremely high-resolution image sensor.
"The ease of using standard semiconductor processing technology to fabricate 3-D p-n junctions was surprising," adds co-author Karl Hirschman of the Rochester Institute of Technology. That manufacturing ease is an important breakthrough for increasing production and lowering costs, and it makes the device scalable and versatile for a range of applications.
"The initial applications will be for remote or inaccessible sensors and devices where the availability of long-life power is critical," says Gadeken.
The BetaBattery may prove better suited to certain tasks than chemical batteries when power needs are limited. The structures are robust--tolerant to motion and shock, and functional from -148° Fahrenheit (-100° Celsius) to 302° F (150°C)--and may never have to be changed for the lifetime of the device.
Qynergy Corp get honourable mention for New Mexico's high flyers for 2007
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Qynergy Corporation AWARDED $3.1 million contract from Air Force Research Laboratory FOR NEW ENERGY TECHNOLOGY
This contract will allow Qynergy to use proprietary semiconductor technology licensed from Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico to develop new power solutions for the Air Force.
They are licensing out of Sandia and U of NM - I see no particular "bad science" here.
Bringing it to market is another thing entirely.
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I was wondering where I heard of tritium before, and then it occurred to me:
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Tritium, similar to deuterium, was used as fuel in matter-antimatter reactions aboard starships like the USS Enterprise-D. (TNG: "Galaxy's Child")
In late 2375, tritium proved to be extremely important in helping the Federation Alliance to win the Dominion War. A Klingon chief engineer aboard the IKS Ki'tang adjusted the tritium intermix to compensate for a warp core containment problem. During the Second Battle of Chin'toka, the tritium made the ship invulnerable to the Breen energy dampening weapon.
I suppose more importantly is the cost to produce Tritium. According to Wikipedia, the natural abundance of this element is almost none existant due to the short half life. The best way to make it is as a byproduct of nucular reactions and scince 1955, the US has only produced about 225 KG of the stuff. Your going to need a cheaper and more productive way of producing it in large quantities I think if you want Apple to put one in every Macbook.
I see - I guess Sandia Labs should take instructions from one Rupert Goodwins who clearly knows more than they do.
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This contract will allow Qynergy to use proprietary semiconductor technology licensed from Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico
You asked for the support......
Here's your science
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Tritium Production
Tritium–Producing Burnable Absorber Rods (TPBARs) are being used to generate tritium. When irradiated in a commercial nuclear reactor, the TPBAR’s lithium—6 ceramic pellets absorb neutrons to produce helium and tritium. Modeling studies are needed to predict TPBAR performance, to ensure that tritium permeation meets safety standards, and to evaluate improved designs.
The primary goal of our modeling is to predict the time–dependent spatial distributions of gas pressures on the TPBAR cladding for use in calculations of tritium permeation into the reactor coolant water. These pressure and permeation predictions require detailed modeling of gas generation, transport, and chemical reactions within the TPBAR assembly. We have developed three different 1D and 2D transport models; we also analyze the implications of axial natural convection transport driven by radial temperature differences between the rod center and the cladding surface. We are currently working to include additional physical processes involving ingress of hydrogen gas from the cooling water and the subsequent exchange of hydrogen and tritium among H2, T2, HT, T2O, H2O, and HTO.
For more information, please contact Aili Ting, (925) 294-2181, ating@sandia.gov
...tell the science community at U of T, University of New Mexico, PhysOrg and Sandia Labs they don't know what they are talking about because a blogger says so.
Scientists estimate there are about1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year, according to Apollo17 astronaut and FTI researcher Harrison Schmitt.
Cash crop of the moon
When the solar wind, the rapid streamof charged particles emitted by the sun, strikes the moon, helium 3 isdeposited in the powdery soil. Over billions of years that adds up. Meteorite bombardment disperses the particles throughout the top several meters ofthe lunar surface.
"Helium 3 could be the cash crop forthe moon," said Kulcinski, a longtime advocate and leading pioneer in thefield, who envisions the moon becoming "the Hudson Bay Store of Earth."Today helium 3 would have a cash value of $4 billion a ton in terms ofits energy equivalent in oil, he estimates. "When the moon becomes an independent country, it will have something to trade."
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...tell the science community at U of T, University of New Mexico, PhysOrg and Sandia Labs they don't know what they are talking about because a blogger says so.
It's a very far stretch from this research to laptop batteries that will last 30 years.
Besides, I'm still waiting for that nuclear-powered flying car promised to my grandfather back in the 50s. Where's Tesla's unlimited free energy device?
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