Batteries that don't ever need to be charged

[Punxatawneyjoe]

Seems like a solid concept. would change the world as we know it if it ever came to fruition.

 

https://ndb.technology/

[KiwiMark]

I am incredibly dubious about the claimed scalability of diamond nano batteries.  My understanding is that they keep putting out power for years (decades even) but at a steady slow rate.  You could never power a PEV from them for example.  Could you create a nuclear powered smartphone?  I'm not sure that you could do that either, not unless you drastically reduced the required current draw.  Could these power a smart watch?  Maybe in a few years time, if (again) you could get the current draw down low enough.  Has anyone created any nuclear/diamond battery that can output as much as 1 watt?

Since the isotope can't be turned on, off, up or down - I have to wonder what would happen to the unneeded power if you actually could make a really powerful battery.  You might be needing to dissipate a HUGE amount of heat.

[atdlzpae]

Nuclear batteries exist but they deliver absolutely minuscule currents - on the order of microwatts. Not viable to run anything massive.

Additionally, quoting Wikipedia:

Quote

At those values, its energy density would be approximately 3.3 Wh/g over its 100 year half-life, about 10 times that of conventional electrochemical batteries.

Best Li-ion's have currently like 0.3Wh/g of energy density. So if you charge your car 11 times you'll use as much energy as the same weight of diamond nuclear battery can generate in 100 years.

This is a completely pointless technology except for very, very niche fields... Maybe. I can't think of any use where RTG generator wouldn't be a better choice.
But it's great to scam investors out of their money!

Edited November 14, 2022 by atdlzpae

[KiwiMark]

3 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

But it's great to scam investors out of their money!

This is definitely what I was thinking when I was reading through ndb's website.  The only way you could put these in an electric car would be alongside other batteries (Li-Ion, LiFePO4, Solid State, whatever), with the power from the ndb batteries going into charging the other batteries - but then how long to recharge the batteries?  If the output from the ndb batteries was enough to charge the car overnight then that is quite a lot of wattage coming out, so that is a lot of waste energy if you don't need to use the car on your day off.  If the output is really high, how on earth are these batteries going to last for decades?  The reason these ndb batteries last so long is that the isotopes put out a lot of energy over a very long time, which necessarily means that they do it slowly.  Put out the energy fast and they CANNOT last a long time.  Put out the energy slowly and they CANNOT put out a lot of current.  The claims made about lasting a long time and putting out a lot of current MUST be false because you get one thing or the other but physics says you can't have both.  Remember, the isotopes can't put out a variable amount of energy - it is a steady, but slowly declining release of energy.

The people at ndb have to know that even if they could run a smart phone, they will NEVER be able to run an electric vehicle.  They will possibly improve the technology and open up new uses for the ndb batteries due to that, but I'd bet they know that most of their claims are wild exaggerations or outright lies.