Talk:Diamond battery

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Potential prototype characteristics

In this section the data is self contradictory. It mixes data from several prototypes.

As it is a copy-paste from the source, the source is unreliable.

In initial prototypes, nickel-63 has been used as the radioactive source for the diamond.[3]

This states the prototype use nickel-63

Voltage – 2 V estimated (Ni-63 1.9 V measured).[4]

This states the prototype use nickel-63

Energy – 2.7TJ over first 5,730 years.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_nickel states nickel-63 has a half-life of 100y, not 5730y.

Therefore this data is from a prototype using carbon-14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14

The energy amount (2.7TJ) is too big for the prototype size:

Prototype size – 10 mm × 10 mm × 0.5 mm (plus electrodes).[4]

1 cm * 1 cm * 0.05 cm = 0.05 cm3

Diamond density is 3.5 g/cm3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond

0.05 cm3 * 3.5 g/cm3 = 0.175 g

From the source: The team claims that a battery with 1g of carbon-14, would deliver 15 Joules per day, taking 5,730 years (C-14 half-life) to reach 50 per cent power.

15 J/d * 365 d/y * 5730 y = 31.371.750 J = 31.37 MJ for a 1g prototype.

0.175 g * 31.371.750 J/g = 5.490.000 J = 5.49 MJ

5.49 MJ is not 2.7 TJ

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.181.85.113 (talk) 16:31, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

To approach the problem from the other end, assuming a decay energy of 0.156MeV ^[1], I get a gram of ¹⁴C releasing about 1.1GJ over all eternity. Make of that what you will. With a half-life of 5730 years, I figure a gram releases 4.13mW in the form of beta radiation; per day, this amounts to 357J. 15J is 4% of this, which actually sounds like a plausible conversion efficiency. But ¹⁴C will not be powering our cell phones or electric cars, as someone has been claiming in the media recently.Pciszek (talk) 23:36, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

_"...one battery, containing 1g of carbon-14, would deliver 15 Joules per day. This is less than an AA battery. Standard alkaline AA batteries are designed for short timeframe discharge: one battery weighing about 20g has an energy storage rating of 700J/g. If operated continuously, this would run out in 24 hours. Using carbon-14 the battery would take 5,730 years to reach 50 per cent power, which is about as long as human civilization has existed."_ -- http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2016/november/diamond-power.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.247.128.35 (talk) 20:39, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I've re-written the section to better reflect the article and it's corrections but still mention the claim of a prototype, I've also added another Nickel-63 prototype which is extensively documented including proper test results. I've also re-written a lot of the rest of the article and removed anything unreferenced and dubious although this article could still do with more work although the topic is difficult to research with all the recent misinformation. EnchanterTim (talk) 05:13, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

References

[1]
"Carbon-14".

Should this article exist?

Why the Bristol ‘diamond battery’ concept, what’s so notable about it? As far as I can tell it’s a novel idea to repurpose graphite moderators however it is by no means a notable technology especially when compared to the core technology of betavolatics with diamond-based energy conversion. This article really belongs as a short section on the betavoltatics article seeing as the device is nothing more than a theory with questionable practically and the vaguely related prototype has no reliable source and its existence isn’t even clear. The quality of the rest of this article is also low with many bad sources and some of them leaning towards optimistic speculation of future applications. EnchanterTim (talk) 12:43, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

What is notable about this isotope is that a battery of the same mass as a Tesla battery, namely 500 kg, can continuously produce 750 watts 24/7 while taking 82 years for that rate to decrease by a mere 1%. (This can be calculated directly from its 5730 year half-life, 50 keV/decay, and molar mass of 14 g.) Is there any other betavoltaic that can match this specific lifetime?

750 watts for a year is 23,670 Mj or 23670/3.6 = 6,574 kWh. At say 4 miles per kWh this would take a BEV 26,300 miles, more than twice the 12,000 miles per year allowed by a typical 3-year lease.

It would require a substantial ultracapacitor to cope with the sporadic demands, between which the battery would trickle charge the ultracapacitor.

The main objection is not specific lifetime but availability. There is no known technology in the whole world for producing remotely near enough C14 in our lifetime for even one car. And a 1.5 mW battery based on one gram of C14 would be prohibitively expensive for any but government customers and billionaires who had a serious need for a battery that could last centuries with negligible loss of power. Vaughan Pratt (talk) 03:02, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I think you've gotten mixed up somewhere, their claim is 15J/day for 1 g of ¹⁴C which would be 0.17 mW, not 1.5 mW. This would mean a battery with 500 kg of ¹⁴C (note the conversion diamonds and other components would add up to vastly more than the mass of the ¹⁴C alone) would generate 87 W of electrical energy and ~2 kW of waste heat (assuming typical 4% efficiency). At that point an RTG would be a vastly better choice. (betavoltaics make sense only for very low powers) The supercapacitor required to power a car for any reasonable length of time would be insane, the energy density of current supercapacitors is orders of magnitude less than that of what would be required. For those reasons alone this technology is a pipe dream but the fact that 500 kg of ¹⁴C would likely cost trillions of dollars drives home it isn’t remotely feasible despite what some recent companies are claiming.

However most of what this article contains is similar optimistic speculation about prototype results, ¹⁴C extraction possibilities, theory of operation, durability and applications, all proposal by a single source (University of Bristol), no one else is suggesting to go about this the same way as them.

Either way something must be done about this article as it can’t stay as it is and I think it should be either, deletion, or removing all unreliable sources, content without references, rewording dubious claims (most of the article) and the addition of some sort of criticism section to deal with the recent miracle claims. In its current form all this article does is perpetuate an infeasible concept. EnchanterTim (talk) 14:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Diamond battery

Potential prototype characteristics

Should this article exist?

Nano Diamond Battery Inc.

Can an editor make this article intelligible?

Should be marked for deletion

Nano Diamond Battery Inc. officially charged with defrauding investors

Update needed

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