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IPFS News Link • Energy

Radioactive Diamond Batteries: Making Good Use Of Nuclear Waste

• forbes.com by James Conca

Such a battery produces very low power, but has no moving parts, no emissions of any type including radiation, needs no maintenance, does not need to be recharged and will operate for thousands of years.

The team grew a man-made diamond that, when placed in a radiation field, was able to generate a small electrical current. And the radioactive field can be produced by the diamond itself by making the diamond from radioactive carbon-14 extracted from nuclear waste.

Even better, the amount of radioactivity in each diamond battery is a lot less than in a single banana.

Diamonds are made from pure carbon subjected to high pressures, usually deep in the Earth's crust. But we have been artificially making them for decades. You just need a good carbon source, such as graphite or coal, and a machine to create the high pressure.


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