Scientists Built a Tiny Battery Out of Nuclear Waste That You'll Never Have to Recharge

Popular Mechanics Article: Scientists Built a Tiny Battery Out of Nuclear Waste That You'll Never Have to Recharge

Optical Materials Article: Scintillator based nuclear photovoltaic batteries for power generation at microwatts level - ScienceDirect

Nuclear energy is a common source of electricity and is generated in power plants throughout the world. Harnessing nuclear energy involves nuclear fission reactions. Nuclear fission occurs through the splitting of a nuclei into two or more smaller nuclei, which releases energy. This can trigger a chain reaction in which extra neutrons collide with other unstable nuclei, breaking into more nuclei and generating more energy. Uranium is the most commonly used element in power plants. Uranium isotopes are contained within fuel rods, which are packed into a reactor core. The core is cooled with water to control the rate of nuclear fission and generate steam to spin a turbine, which generates usable energy.

Nuclear energy accounts for around 10% of the energy consumed worldwide. As climate change progresses and the demand for clean energy increases, that number is expected to rise in the coming years. While nuclear energy doesn’t generate greenhouse gases, it does generate nuclear waste from the reactions that occur within the reactor core. Nuclear waste has residual energy and is kept in fuel cooling pools for around five years, then moved to casks which are commonly left on site of the power plant. Large underground storage sites are used for permanent storage of radioactive material.

Scientists at Ohio State University found a way to harness the residual energy of nuclear waste and use it in batteries. Researchers used scintillator crystals, which are materials that scintillate, or luminesce, when hit with ionizing radiation. They paired the scintillating crystals with solar cells that can convert the radiation into usable energy. They tested the batteries using several different kinds of radioactive waste, including cesium-137 and cobalt-60. The cesium isotope generated only a small amount of energy on the nanowatt scale. However, the cobalt generated enough energy to reach the microwatt scale. They also found that using scintillator crystals with greater volumes and surface areas generated larger power outputs. While a relatively small amount of energy was produced in initial experiments, the success of the batteries shows that the technology may be able to advance in the future and eventually generate larger amounts of energy.

The Popular Mechanics Article on the topic discussed the importance of the discovery and some brief background on nuclear energy. It didn’t go into too much detail about the actual design of the batteries and wasn’t very descriptive on what a scintillator is or how it interacts with radiation. However, the article did do a good job explaining why the batteries are important. They explained that the batteries could be used in exploration of the deep sea or deep space, where nuclear systems may already be used for energy. They highlighted another interesting study done that utilized carbon-14 isotopes from graphite blocks as energy in batteries.

The peer reviewed article published in Optical Materials goes into much greater detail about the mechanism of the nuclear waste batteries. They explain that the scintillator converts radiation into visible light, an important detail that was unclear in the Popular Mechanics article. They also went into detail about the types of scintillators used, with a very helpful table comparing density, light yield, wavelength of light emitted, and radiation hardness. They found that a Gadolinium Aluminum Gallium Garnet (GAGG) were the most effective scintillators, and that the cobalt isotope generated the largest amount of energy. The article was very thorough in explaining the experimental setup, something which was not done at all in the Popular Mechanics Article.

Overall, I would rate the Popular Mechanics Article a 7/10. They did a good job of making the topic understandable, but lacked certain details that would help further understanding regarding the scintillators. It was unclear what a scintillator was and why it was used in the experiment. However, they did do a good job explaining the importance of the study and gave a good general background on nuclear waste itself. I think that both articles could have benefited from having more detail about the storage of nuclear waste to further the importance of finding alternative uses for it. Overall, I think that it was an informative article to read and really interesting to learn about, as sustainable energy solutions are becoming more important every day. I’m looking forward to seeing how studies like these progress in the future, and if someday a battery will be generated using the same method that can be used for larger scale energy purposes.