It’s too late for mobile devices. Everybody expects a permanent internet connection, either WiFi or mobile internet, and therefore they all need much more than some microwatts.
The nuclear battery for a phone would be larger than the one in the article and likely paired with a capacitor battery. So the nuclear battery is constantly outputting 1w to a capacitor that stores energy that the device draws from.
Phones don’t use tons of power constantly and the standby power needs are fairly low.
Just calculate an average day’s energy example. Let’s say, you charge your 5000mAh battery once per day from “10%” 2,6V to “100%” 4,2V. That makes about 8Wh. So your average for the whole 24 hours is 0,3 W, or 300 mW or 300.000 μW.
I noticed, by reading the article, that Nickel 63 decays to Copper 63 which is stable.
"Betavolt further states the battery is environmentally friendly. “After the decay period, the nickel 63 isotopes become a stable isotope of copper, which is non-radioactive and does not pose any threat or pollution to the environment,” the company explains. “Therefore, unlike existing chemical batteries, nuclear batteries do not require expensive recycling processes.” "
Sounds very similar to the old Soviet pacemakers with radioisotope batteries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, records about them got lost and so a bunch of people have been buried with pretty radioactive stuff in their chest. I don’t think we (as developed societies) are going to take that risk for some phone batteries…
Yes I’m talking about recharging a battery sitting next to this; agreed that it can’t power a node directly. In the U.K. we are actually allowed to transmit up to 500 mW on the ISM band (provided we adhere to the utilisation quota, which I think is 15%)
Smartphones are almost perfected now, the only “parts” that are making them obsolete after 2-3 years are batteries and operating system, both should be regulated to be changable and available for third-parties to make replacement.
Once they have a one watt version, this would be good for trickle charging when you are not using the device, such as when you’re sleeping. But you would definitely need a lithium battery alongside it for normal use.
The article is really funny, because they talk about how this company's innovation could be used in pacemakers. When they had betavoltaic pacemakers in the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device
You’ve touched on a great point. The power provided is so low that solar can effectively provide equivalent power in nearly every application except one where the continuous operating environment is pitch black. 15x15mm for 0.0001w is small. For comparison, that’s about 1/6 of the power that falls on a 15x15mm patch in an indoor office (300lux environment with led lighting), out about the same as could be harvested by an efficient solar panel off the same size. You could collect a full days power from this battery (and store it in a 2mm thick li cell behind the panel) in roughly three minutes of sunshine or ten to fifteen minutes on an overcast day.
There certainly are applications where it would be useful, but most could just as easily be served by a small solar patch and lithium cell or super capacitor.
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