Episode 140 | Durable Diamonds | NDB
I first heard about nuclear batteries in Episode 134 on nuclear fuel recycling. My guest fleetingly mentioned they were working with companies to make use of their fission products, the dozens of isotopes that make up approximately 4% of the material that cannot be recycled.
San Francisco-based NDB (Nano Diamond Battery) is one of the companies in the conversation. Founded in 2019, the developer believes they can safely produce batteries that essentially power themselves.
My guest, CEO Nima Golsharifi, compares the technology to a solar cell, with the isotopes acting as the sunlight.
The fission products are then encased in synthetic diamonds. Nima says they are deposited using a process called “nanoscale ion implantation.” This means they are spread out within the diamond, rather than a single “chunk.” This would prevent any mischief.
“It’s almost impossible to have access to the material in bulk,” he says.
NDB is suggesting their product could be used for anything from home electronics to cell phones to electric vehicles. They would also choose an isotope that was matched to the lifespan of the device (i.e. a cell phone battery that lasts 2 years). Other batteries, like those with Carbon-14, have half-lives lasting millennia.
A battery like this with unlimited potential also faces a few challenges. A battery that essentially never stops can build up heat if it does not electrify something. Nima says an electric vehicle, for instance, would probably need to feed out to the grid if it sat idle for too long.
We also discussed the inherent safety concerns, and public perception. Nima says radioactivity is self-contained. “Most people don’t know that smoke detectors contain radioactive materials,” he adds, “still they have them at home without any problem.” He adds that simple radiation monitoring proves their batteries are no different from what people experience in their daily lives.
These 4% of the fission products potentially recoverable from America’s 86K metric tons of spent nuclear fuel equals about 3.5 tons. Nima estimates this could provide about 10 quadrillion Joules, or about 2.7 terawatt-hours of electricity. For reference, that is close to the amount of energy all electric vehicles consumed in 2018.
“The purpose of our company is making good use of these byproducts and resolve the nuclear waste issue,” he says.
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