UK Develops Carbon-14 Diamond Battery to Generate Trace Power from Nuclear Waste

Recently, the University of Bristol and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) jointly announced a milestone achievement in the development of diamond micro-batteries (Diamond Battery) using the carbon-14 radioactive isotope. The device can convert nuclear waste into trace amounts of electrical energy, enabling continuous operation for up to 5,700 years without recharging.

It is reported that the battery structure embeds a thin carbon-14-containing diamond layer within a non-radioactive carbon-12 diamond barrier. Electrons released during the decay of carbon-14 are captured by the diamond and directly converted into electric current, operating on a principle similar to "nuclear-powered solar panels" that generate electricity using β radiation, achieving ultra-long service life power generation while ensuring high radiation safety.

The breakthrough of this technology lies in its raw material source: radioactive waste from decommissioned graphite reactors at nuclear power plants. By extracting and purifying carbon-14 isotopes from discarded graphite blocks, the research team not only provides a novel volume-reduction solution for the resource-oriented disposal of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, but also greatly reduces the long-term storage and management costs of special nuclear waste.

Although diamond batteries currently can only provide microwatt-level power and cannot be used for high-power devices, they hold enormous application prospects in fields requiring infrequent replacement and maintenance, such as medical implants (e.g., pacemakers), deep-space exploration instruments, extreme-environment sensors, and long-term tracking identifiers, marking a new milestone in the application of nuclear isotope batteries and non-power nuclear technologies.