A team of Chinese researchers now claims to have developed a nuclear battery that will last for 100 years. During that time, the battery will not need to be recharged. Whether it will end up in cars, however, is unknown.
A team of Chinese researchers claims to have developed a nuclear battery that will last for 100 years. During that time, the battery will not need to be recharged.
The Chinese also say that they have cracked the code to an even higher energy density when compared to the current and most widely used lithium-ion batteries.
This is reported by Yahoo News .
Specifically, a team of researchers and engineers from the University of Gansu, China, say they have developed a nuclear battery that can supply power for 100 years without needing to be recharged.
The battery has been named Zhulong-1 and is a further development of a battery that researchers said just a year ago would be able to last for 50 years .
There's just one catch to the new battery: it consists of carbon-14, among other things. The material is radioactive, and it has a half-life of a staggering 5,730 years.
Conversely, it is also radioactivity that the Chinese adhere to. The scientists believe that carbon-14 is what makes the battery extremely efficient.
After 5 years, the battery will have degraded by the equivalent of 5 percent. And after 100 years, 10 percent has disappeared. Yet the Chinese claim that this does not affect the capacity of the battery pack itself.
Instead, it's about how much power the nuclear battery can deliver. Or rather, can't as time goes on. The battery must also be able to function at temperatures from -100 degrees Celsius to +200 degrees Celsius.
Furthermore, the Chinese say that they have found a battery that is 10 times more energy efficient than the most common lithium-ion batteries.
Translated into more common Danish, this means that the weight of the battery pack can be shaved down to between 60 and 70 kilos. Today, the battery packs themselves easily weigh up to 700 kilos.
There are currently no car brands knocking on the Chinese doors to get the technology. Instead, the technology will be used in smaller items such as pacemakers for people with weak or failing hearts.
