Pawan kumar, IET lucknow

1. NUCLEAR BATTERY
PAWAN KUMAR
EC-604
1505231030
GUIDE:
ER. POOJA GUPTA

2. CONTENT
▶ Introduction
▶ Historical Development
▶ Conversion techniques
▶ Types of nuclear batteries
▶ Radioisotope used
▶ Fuel Consideration
▶ Advantages
▶ Disadvantages
▶ Applications
▶ Conclusion

3. Introduction
▶ There is a great need of small, compact, light weighted and reliable
power supplies.
▶ Nuclear Battery: uses energy from the decay of radio isotopes.
▶ Unlike nuclear reactor there is no radioactive waste produced.
▶ It is used as power sources for equipment that must operate
unattended for long period of time.

4. Historical Development
▶ Nuclear battery technology began in 1913, when Henry
Moseley first demonstrated the beta cell.
▶ A radio isotope electric power system was developed by inventor
Paul Brown.
▶ The field received considerable in-depth research attention for
applications requiring long-life power sources for space needs during
the 1950s and 1960s.
▶ In 1954 RCA researched a small atomic battery for small radio
receivers.

5. Conversion techniques
▶ Thermal conversion:
The thermal converters (whose output power is a function of a
temperature differential) include thermoelectric and thermionic
generators.
▶ Non-thermal conversion:
The non-thermal converters (whose output power is not a function of
a temperature difference) extract a fraction of the incident energy as
it is being degraded into heat rather than using thermal energy to run
electrons in a cycle.

6. TYPES OF NUCLEAR BATTERIES
1. Direct Charging Generator
Reciprocating electromechanical atomic battery
Beta voltaic
● Radioisotope thermoelectric generator
1. Thermionic Convertor

7. BETAVOLTAIC
▶ Use a non-thermal conversion process
▶. These are generators of electric current, using energy
from a radioactive source emitting beta particles electrons
▶ Converts the electron-hole pairs produced by the ionization trail of
beta particles traversing a p-n junction semiconductor

9. RADIOISOTOPES USED
Atomic batteries uses radio isotopes producing low energy beta
particles and sometimes alpha of varying energies
▶ Tritium
▶ Nickel-63
▶ Promethium- 147
▶ Technetium-99
▶ Plutonium-238
▶ Curium-242
▶ Curium-244
▶ Strontium-90
tested
used

10. Advantages…
▶ Reliable
▶ Lighter with high energy density
▶ Life span : minimum of decades
▶ Efficient use of end-product obtained post nuclear fission
and nuclear fusion process as fuel in nuclear batteries
▶ Energy obtained is high
▶ Reduces green house effect and related effects.

11. Disadvantages…
▶ High initial cost of production
▶ Energy conversion methodologies not much advanced
▶ To gain social acceptance
▶ Regional and country specific laws regarding the use and
disposal of radioactive materials

12. Applications..
▶ Space
▶ Automobiles
▶ Medical
▶ Underwater sea probes or sea sensors
▶ Military

13. Space Applications
▶ Unaffected by long period of darkness
and radiation belt like Van-belt
▶ High power for long time independent
of the atmospheric conditions
▶ Used in long duration missions where
fuel cells, batteries and solar arrays
would be too large and heavy

14. Automobiles
▶ It is on initial stages of
development
▶ Nuclear batteries could
replace conventional
fuels then there will be
no case of running out of
fuel

15. Medical Application
▶ Due to increased longevity and better reliability it is used in
pacemakers ,implanted deep fibrillators and other implanted
devices

16. Underwater sea probes and
sea sensors
▶ Provides power in inaccessible
places like deep sea that should
keep working for long time or
under extreme condition like
earthquake and tsunami

17. Military application
▶ Radioisotope power sources to
provide very high density battery
power to radio frequency equipment
tags, sensors and ultra wide-band
communication

18. Conclusion
▶ The current research of nuclear batteries shows
promise in future applications
▶ Implementation of this new technology, feasibility of
the device will be available for wide range of
application
▶ Nuclear cells are going to be the next best thing
ever invented in human history

19. THANK
YOU