EEVblog #1333 - Nuclear Diamond Self-Charging Battery DEBUNKED!

EEVblog · 194.8K views · 2020-08-27 · 27:58

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Overview

Dave Jones of EEVblog debunks the marketing claims of the self-charging nano nuclear diamond battery from NDB Inc. He argues it is no better than existing 100uW betavoltaic batteries, with an added graphene supercapacitor.

On Hacker News

Repeatedly linked under hype stories about nuclear diamond batteries as the definitive debunk.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2020–2024

Topics

Renewables, batteries & storage Electronics & circuit design

What people said

0xbadc0de5 · 2024-01 · Criticism
These are woefully underpowered for consumer electronics and always will be - only really useful for maintaining volatile memory. This idea has actually been debunked more than once. [VIDEO] [LINK]
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gus_massa · 2022-04 · Criticism
It was heavily discussed a few years ago, for example in [LINK] They last for a log time, but the important detail is that they have very low power, like 1mW with the size factor of a normal battery, so you need like a dozen for a (old) wrist watch and s few hundred to turn on a led. More details in: [LINK] [VIDEO] (EEVblog)
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gus_massa · 2021-04 · Criticism
It is not clear that they have a real working prototype. The current is very low, only 100uW, and there are similar batteries made with tritium. More info in a video by EEVblog eevblog had a good video about this product: [VIDEO] (it's old, but I can't find any evidence of improvements.) Also, there is a calculation of the low the maximal current per kilogram in [LINK]
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Sources

Video by EEVblog, played through YouTube.

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