By now there are many reports of the diamond age. Nuclear waste turned into diamonds that can power our machines for generations.
Here is one Link
But how much power as of the time of writing this I can't find a number for this.
This is where I started to look. I feel like I might need your help figure out an energy density for these new diamonds.
Wikipedia Diamond Radiation Detector
Most silicon particle detectors work, in principle, by doping narrow (usually around 100 micrometers wide) strips of silicon to turn them into diodes, which are then reverse biased. As charged particles pass through these strips, they cause small ionization currents that can be detected and measured.
On diamond detectors specifically:
Diamond detectors have many similarities with silicon detectors, but are expected to offer significant advantages, in particular a high radiation hardness and very low drift currents.
The basis for the diamond battery is the Betavoltaic Device, (another good refrence),
These works on Beta decay which is the release of a Beta_particle.
In general beta decay works like this:
n → p + e− + νe
Electron emission (β− decay) decay of carbon-14 into nitrogen-14 with a half-life of about 5,730 years:
14 6C → 14 7N + e− + νe
Which has an energy of 0.156476MeV or 156KeV.
What is an electron volt?
"The electron-volt (1.6×10−19 J) is the amount of energy a single electric charge (electron, or proton for that matter) gains when crossing an electric potential of one volt."ref
This is a conversion for transforming eV to voltage:
V = eV / e
So the voltage output is dependent on the number of electrons, which is dependent on the number of decaying c14 atoms.
How many beta particles per g of c14
A gram of carbon containing 1 atom of carbon-14 per 10^12 atoms will emit 0.40[5] beta particles per second.
So is that 0.2 as they could be a positron or an electron? For now Im going to go with 0.40.
Whats the ratio of c14 to c12 are in the diamond? That will likely depend on the process used and the starting material.
A 5.00 carat diamond has a mass of 1.00g. How many carbon atoms are in a 5.00 carat diamond?
1g Carbon x (1mole Carbon/ 12.01 g Carbon) = 0.08326 moles Carbon
0.08326 moles Carbon x (6.02 x 10^23 atoms/ 1 mole Carbon) =
5.01 x 10^22 atoms of Carbon in a 5.00 carat diamond.
There would be a few less with a gram of c14.
C14 mm = 14.003241989
1g Carbon x (1mole Carbon/ 14.003 g Carbon) = 0.07141 moles Carbon
0.07141 moles Carbon x (6.02 x 10^23 atoms/ 1 mole Carbon) =
4.299 x 10^22 atoms of Carbon in a 5.00 carat (1g) diamond.
Using this Calculation of Carbon-14 Decay Used in Radioactive Dating we can find the number of decays per second
average lifetime:
5,700 years x (365 days/year) x (24 hours/day) x (60 minutes/hour) x (60 seconds/minute) / 0.693 = 2.6 x 1011 seconds
That's 260 billion seconds.
The decay rate (fraction of atoms that decay per second) is the inverse of the average lifetime:
decay rate as a fraction:
1 / (2.6 x 1011 seconds) = 3.8 x 10-12 per second
The number of atoms decaying per second is the number of carbon-14 atoms multiplied by the decay rate:
(4.299 x 10^22 atoms) x (3.8 x 10-12 per second) = 163,362,000,000 atoms per second = 163,362,000,000 becquerels
That's 163,362,000,000 atoms per second.
For the final calculation
MeV = 0.156476
Electron-volts to joules conversion
2.5070218018e-14 joules
Watts are just Joules per second. "A 100W incandecent buld is spewing 100J of energy per second in the form of light" Ref
Joules to kWh conversion
6.9639494494e-21
KWh to watts
For one second (1/3600th of an hour), we have 2.5070218018e-14w
This makes sense with the joules appoach just above this.
Number of beta decays X watts from one decay event = total power
163,362,000,000 beta decays X 2.5070218018e-14w = 0.004095520955856516w
This seems low to me.
This is one gram though. To get ot 100w you would need 24,416.918159581610277862147452069g.
This is a diamond 24.417kg
With electronics we can create pretty much any output with in the total power range. Converting current to voltage or vice versa.
I also wonder as the carbon decays it would create nitrogen. This would change the properties of the material. So my guess is that the battery would be way less efficient by the time it was at its half-life.
Adding some super capacitors could allow one to use a smaller NB to charge it and then run say a car with the super caps power. Then at night the NB charges the cars SCs and it would be ready to go in the morning. (If corrrectly engineered)
Battery breakthrough charges in seconds, lasts for a week
If you have a background that can yield an answer let me know and I'll credit you too.
I'll update this as I get more feed back or better answers, Thank Guys
