What Is a Diamond Battery and How Does It Work?

Thanks to the developing technology and modern life, efforts to eliminate the need to constantly charge mobile phones, planes, rockets, electric vehicles, sensors, and other devices are increasing. The growing demand for efficient, cost-effective batteries and the increasing environmental concern of standard batteries bring a new project: Diamond Battery.

This project aims to recycle radioactive wastes, which are getting harder to store for our world and to turn them into long-lasting batteries for us, belongs to the US firm NDB Technology. The company's CEO, Nima Golsharifi, announced that these batteries will use 9 years for phones and 28,000 years for smaller sensor technologies and that their laboratories are closed due to the pandemic, and when opened, they can finish the commercial prototype in 6-7 months.

At the same time, it was pointed that the radiation level of diamond batteries will be lower and safe than the radiation level produced by the human body.

Serving as a small nuclear generator, the power source for these batteries consists of high-level radioisotopes coated with multiple synthetic diamonds for safety. Graphites, a type of carbon that has become radioactive, react and turn into purified Carbon-14 diamond. To make the Carbon-14 diamond safe, a non-radioactive, lab-made polycrystalline Carbon-12 diamond layer, which prevents radiation leaks, acts as a protective and durable layer. In this way, without emitting radiation, nuclear waste is transformed into long-lasting and dense energy.

Battery performance develops much slower than computer hardware, even if it is hard to believe, it is theoretically possible. Diamond batteries have always produced a small amount of energy in prototypes made so far. One of the advantages of diamond battery, which offers a cost-effective solution for manufacturers; creates opportunities for fossil fuel-powered vehicles, phones, laptops, and increased device computing power and even quantum. We will see in the future this environmentally friendly energy source will replace or not conventional batteries such as gasoline and lithium-ion batteries.