A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years::A glowing horizon for phones

  • Dem Bosain
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    7610 months ago

    Nickel-63 is pretty safe as radioactive elements go. It’s proposed as an energy source for pacemakers.

    Standford says 0.1mm of plastic will absorb all emissions.

    • pelya
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      5010 months ago

      At this moment, 1 gram of radioactive Nickel-63 costs around 4,000 USD. Nickel-63 isotope does not occur in nature, it is obtained by irradiating Nickel-62 inside a nuclear reactor.

      • @[email protected]
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        710 months ago

        The world needs breeder reactors anyways, build out a lot of gen 4 plants and make Nickle-63 to boot.

    • @[email protected]
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      2410 months ago

      What happens when the casing get punctured? When you mass produce these devices these things will happen.

      • Justin
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        1610 months ago

        Probably the same as with tritium lumes. Only dangerous if you swallow the unshielded nickel.

          • @[email protected]
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            1910 months ago

            I mean so is drinking a gallon of bleach. Fortunately, there’s a pretty simple preventative measure for both:

            Don’t do it?

          • @[email protected]
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            1110 months ago

            What gave you the idea that swallowing a small amount of mildly radioactive material is fatal?

            • Transporter Room 3
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              1110 months ago

              Man, I figured the joke was obvious but I guess not.

              “tiny amount of radioactive material whose radiation stopped by thin plastics is a literal death sentence” is, I thought, pretty clear hyperbole.

              • @[email protected]
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                1010 months ago

                A lot of people are really irrationally afraid of anything involving radiation. I mistook you for one of them.

                • Transporter Room 3
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                  310 months ago

                  No worries. Glow it up, let’s get some extreme energy density up in this bitch. I went for nuke in the old days where I enlisted in the military.

                  I have a healthy respect for radiation. That’s why I leave handling the good stuff to the professionals.

                  I’ve actually got some small isotope samples in a lockbox from an old highschool demonstration lab for Geiger counters. No Geiger counter though yet. I haven’t even opened it since I got it to check the contents were intact.

                  • Justin
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                    110 months ago

                    pen-sized-ish Geiger counters/scintillating meters are pretty cheap these days.

      • bitwolf
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        910 months ago

        Surely the battery itself would have sufficient protection on top of the devices chassis offering protection.

        I can’t say a Lithium Ion battery leaking in the body would bode very either.