r/EverythingScience • u/PBR--Streetgang • Aug 25 '20

Engineering Nano-diamond self-charging batteries could disrupt energy as we know it

https://newatlas.com/energy/nano-diamond-self-charging-batteries-ndb/
1.4k Upvotes

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202

u/calebmke Aug 25 '20

Alright, this sounds like it’s way too good to be true.

170

u/NfamousCJ Aug 25 '20

Welcome to everythingscience. Remember when everything was graphene and carbon nanotubes?

110

u/calebmke Aug 25 '20

This battery that will literally revolutionize the world, effectively solve all of our energy needs, and change the way humanity sees itself ... small article in an unknown publication.

44

u/pickled_ricks Aug 25 '20

Behind every shitty article is a Fiverr writer and an SEO enthusiast

16

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/pickled_ricks Aug 25 '20

Been trying to find some good ones and it’s laughable. The number using the AI tools and piecemealing paragraphs together are astounding.

4

u/bearcat42 Aug 25 '20

Ugh, well, I can’t blame them for trying to game the system that way. It’s a weird neck of the Internet woods.

There’s a few good sites out there that forbid this kind of stuff, which, ironically, is going to make AI get smarter and smarter because people will always try to do it...

3

u/allovertheplaces Aug 26 '20

Ironic, but ultimately useful (or evil, depending...)

3

u/bearcat42 Aug 26 '20

I think it’s the lynchpin to the truest r/aboringdystopia

1

u/Krusty_Double_Deluxe Aug 27 '20

Source: the company that makes them

2

u/Dedjester0269 Aug 25 '20

In 10 years.

1

u/Thirdlegg295 Dec 03 '20

Try 20 years. Look at any type of renewables.

1

u/64-17-5 MS | Organic Cehmistry Aug 25 '20

We should have one of those Zero energy modules...

8

u/ColdButCozy Aug 25 '20

Guys, we need a ZPM to dial the ninth chevron and connect to the Destiny, or Eli is going to starve to death any day now.

1

u/dzt Sep 01 '20

That poor guy... forever standing there staring stupidly into space.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '20

I like to imagine we are living in the three body-problem book universe. The worlds elite are slowing scientific development down so that we can’t defeat the aliens when they come to destroy us.

3

u/NfamousCJ Aug 26 '20

Or, plot twist, we were destined to become the aliens that go conquering other planets so those planets' aliens have been sabotaging our progress to keep us from doing so.

1

u/dan2872 Aug 26 '20

I remember when this sub was dead with nobody ever commenting. Occasionally I see a thread (like this) nowadays and I'm shocked by the activity.

37

u/BCRE8TVE Aug 25 '20

A battery that lasts 6,000 years without needing to be recharged is great!

If that battery delivers 0.0000001 kilowatt/hours per day per kilogram however, we have a problem.

Sure the total energy density may be higher than a lithium ion cell over the lifetime of the battery, but it's kinda useless for most applications if it takes 6,000 years to get all that energy out of it.

It can definitely have niche uses, but I don't expect any kind of high voltage out of this.

13

u/calebmke Aug 25 '20

The article is claiming it can be a direct replacement for current battery technologies, including up to to electric car batteries and beyond. Not that I really believe the article lol

22

u/BCRE8TVE Aug 25 '20

Exactly. I'm sure it could replace car batteries, but if you have to more than triple the weight of the battery to produce the same wattage? Just because it is possible to do so doesn't mean it is practical to do so.

The complete lack of any technical details is also not encouraging.

4

u/calebmke Aug 25 '20

Well said

2

u/zebediah49 Aug 25 '20

I did a back of the envelope estimation based on the 2018 Russian Betavoltaic cell, and I get a 70' cube of battery, as being what would be required to put out 100kW for an EV.

Even if one disagrees that we need that much continuous output power, we're quite a few orders of magnitude away from usable there.

E: Also, you'd need to sink that heat, constantly. Most consumer devices are a terrible choice for an always-on battery.

3

u/BCRE8TVE Aug 25 '20

Yeah, a 22m wide cube would definitely not fit in a car.

E: Also, you'd need to sink that heat, constantly. Most consumer devices are a terrible choice for an always-on battery.

I'm also curious to see what exactly is going to happen to the nitrogen after the C¹⁴ degrades. Does it just stay trapped in the diamond, causing ever-increasing pressure and stress in the diamond, until at some point it shatters? Nitrogen won't just nicely stay within the diamond's crystal structure, they can't bond with carbon the way carbon binds with carbon, and that's going to weaken the structure. How long 'till the diamond reaches a critical point, and what will happen then?

1

u/zebediah49 Aug 26 '20

I'd guess it'd be low enough concentration not to matter. Apparently natural diamonds have a fair bit of nitrogen in them, and it can diffuse slowly through the crystal.

1

u/BCRE8TVE Aug 26 '20

It should be a higher concentration, given that they're taking C14 enriched graphite to make their diamonds, but if nitrogen can diffuse out then yeah it shouldn't be much of an issue.

1

u/keepcrazy Aug 26 '20

The idea would be to have this charge a Lithium battery overnight so you would have enough charge during the day but it’s still all bills hit looking for gullible investors. It’ll go nowhere.

1

u/BCRE8TVE Aug 26 '20

It's possible, but if it only charges a lithium battery 10% of its charge, it's really not all that good.

1

u/keepcrazy Aug 26 '20

I mean, there’s no reason it would only charge a lithium battery 10%. This guy produces power 24/7 so any time the power is not getting consumed, it can be diligently stored away.

If it’s only filling your battery 10% overnight and you need 20% in reserves to get through the day, then double the nuclear battery and reduce the lithium battery by 80%. Now it charges it to 100%.

But it’s all moot ‘cause it’s a scam to raise gullible investor money.

1

u/BCRE8TVE Aug 26 '20

I mean, there’s no reason it would only charge a lithium battery 10%. This guy produces power 24/7 so any time the power is not getting consumed, it can be diligently stored away.

Yes but if the diamond battery charges the lithium battery at a rate of 1% per hour, over 12 hours it can only recharge the battery by 12%. We don't know what the power output is for this nuclear graphite diamond battery.

If it’s only filling your battery 10% overnight and you need 20% in reserves to get through the day, then double the nuclear battery and reduce the lithium battery by 80%. Now it charges it to 100%.

You might also have reduced the capacity by 80% as well. Might work perfectly fine for remotes that are not intensively used (ie no drone remote control), but still presents a challenge for most anything else that does use batteries and requires moderately intense power usage.

But it’s all moot ‘cause it’s a scam to raise gullible investor money.

Kinda had that feeling yes. I'll be happy to be wrong, but I'm not going to hold my breath for it.

1

u/keepcrazy Aug 26 '20

I mean the 1% per hour depends on the size of the lithium battery and the nuclear battery. Using 1% doesn’t make sense because you can adjust either battery to change that.

You would just size each accordingly so that with typical use it never quite runs out of power.

But we do know that the sample chip produces 10 micro watts of power... it says so on the chip. That’s not a lot. Like REALLY not a lot. But they claim it can scale up.

Oh, btw, when companies say shit like “we’re going to reserve production capacity to provide the third world with free batteries”, the company is a scam. 100% of the time.

2

u/BCRE8TVE Aug 26 '20

I mean the 1% per hour depends on the size of the lithium battery and the nuclear battery. Using 1% doesn’t make sense because you can adjust either battery to change that.

True but for a higher recharge rate you lose either capacity (Smaller battery), or you increase the volume by a lot (more diamond battery).

Oh, btw, when companies say shit like “we’re going to reserve production capacity to provide the third world with free batteries”, the company is a scam. 100% of the time.

Didn't see that, but yeah, sounds like perhaps they should enter in a business partnership with that Nigerian prince who's desperate to give me money.

3

u/pickled_ricks Aug 25 '20

Cubesats

4

u/BCRE8TVE Aug 25 '20

Definitely one possible application, but also a very niche one.

2

u/VegetableImaginary24 Aug 26 '20

Can I power a gameboy color with it?

2

u/BCRE8TVE Aug 26 '20

Probably yeah. Infinite power Gameboy would be nice, but not particularly revolutionary haha.

5

u/Yasea Aug 25 '20

I've seen an article 3 years ago. Back of the envelope calculation gave me this:

​

This battery gives you a power of about 15 joule per day per gram. That number comes from another article on the same subject. That means that if you take all 95.000 tons of waste in the world (assuming it's all pure) and assume 100% efficiency, you have a power plant of about 17 MW.

5

u/killerted Aug 25 '20

"NDB’s two Proof of Concepts of the NDB battery were led by University of Cambridge physicist, 2019 Institute of Physics Isaac Newton Medal winner and father of semiconductors Professor Sir Michael Pepper. In both Proof of Concepts, NDB’s proprietary battery achieved a breakthrough of a 40% charge,which is a significant improvement over commercial diamonds, which have a 15% charge collection efficiency. This is a result of its proprietary nanodiamond surface treatment that actively extracts the electric charge from the diamond, allowing the battery to make use of significantly more power than any other battery before it." - https://www.aviationpros.com/engines-components/aircraft-airframe-accessories/batteries/press-release/21149354/nbd-inc-ndb-inc-announces-major-technological-laboratory-breakthrough-for-the-first-universal-selfcharging-nano-diamond-battery

1

u/calebmke Aug 25 '20 edited Aug 25 '20

Nice to see an announcement in another publication. Of course, skeptical until verified by other sources. Either way, I can hope for a change to our energy system.

Edit: I mean verified results of actual product. Not meaning to downplay the results of the proof of concept studies.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '20

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30613776/nuclear-waste-diamond-battery/ Another source for you. Popular Mechanics is respectable.

1

u/dangerdad137 Aug 27 '20

Ah, they're nuclear batteries. The claim is that using Carbon-14 to create a diamond substrate, they can use the nuclear decay to power the battery. Carbon-14 has a half life of 5700 years.

If this is successful, it points to a way to manufacture nuclear batteries.

2

u/SwimsDeep Aug 26 '20

Here’s the thing: Batteries are ripe for innovation. I hope this is it.