By Bayla Rothschild, Staff Writer
How often do you charge your phone battery? Have you ever noticed that after some time your phone seems to take longer to charge? Eventually, does it feel like a full charge lasts for less time than it did before?
These are all widespread problems caused by the current lithium batteries that are used in phones and other devices, which degrade over time. The maximum charge that lithium batteries can store ends up limiting how much one can use them. This occurs because there is a limit to how much charge a Lithium battery can store and the maximum amount of charge that is able to be stored is the maximum amount of charge that can be used. Moreover, both the mining of Lithium and its incorrect disposal can be very harmful to the environment. For any type of technology that uses batteries to improve, there needs to be batteries that can store even more charge and that will not degrade or harm the environment.
Many teams are trying to develop new types of batteries, but one promising option is nuclear batteries. Nuclear batteries create energy via high-energy particles released by radioactive materials. When people hear about radioactive materials, they often worry about radiation and the risk it poses to humans, but not all radioactive materials are actually harmful if simple and appropriate precautions are taken. Nuclear batteries do not need to be charged, last for up to hundreds of years, are extremely stable and even function well under harsh conditions.
The many potential benefits of nuclear batteries led a team of scientists from South Korea to try to develop one. They selected carbon-14, as the radioactive material that it releases are beta rays, which can easily be shielded with a thin layer of aluminum. Additionally, carbon-14 is relatively cheap, easily found, easy to reuse and degrades extremely slowly.
Traditional lithium batteries work by storing lithium in both a positive electrode (called the cathode) and a negative electrode (called the anode), which are divided by a separator and an electrolyte. The electrolyte helps the lithium ions go from the cathode to the anode, which produces a charge. This charge is collected in the cathode, and is eventually used by whatever the battery is connected to, like a phone or laptop. When one is charging the battery, the ions go from the cathode to the anode, which stores the charge until the battery is used.
On the other hand, nuclear batteries use beta particles that are released when the radiocarbon goes through beta decay to excite a dye material in the battery. This dye then generates more electrons, which creates electricity that can also be used by the device that the battery is connected to.
Recently, various tests were conducted on nuclear batteries, and they were found to be relatively efficient, but not yet more efficient than traditional lithium batteries. Even with this setback, scientists are hopeful that some changes to the shape of the new battery will increase efficiency. Overall, there are strong benefits for future battery usage to be reliant on nuclear batteries, as they never need to be charged, are extremely stable and even function well under harsh conditions.
With current fears of the harm lithium phone batteries cause the environment and the prolific use of batteries in everyday life, there is a crucial need for a new and improved battery. With further development, this role can likely be filled by nuclear batteries.