Converting radiation directly into electricity

Researchers in the United States have announced the successful development of highly efficient substances that can transform radiation from nuclear materials and reactions into electricity.

Liviu Popa-Simil, previously a nuclear engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory and now the founder of a private research and development company LAVM and Claudiu Muntele of Alabama A&M University, United States, discloses that converting the energy of radioactive particles into electricity is more effective.

The researchers estimate that the substances they are testing would be able to extract up to twenty times more power from radiation than thermoelectric materials. The tests involve layers of carbon nanotubes tiles filled with gold and then encased by lithium hydride. When radioactive particles come into contact with the gold a shower of high-energy electrons are released. These high-energy electrodes pass through carbon nanotubes and into the lithium hydride and then onto the electrodes thereby letting current flow.

The former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear engineer sums it up saying in one sentence: “You put in nuclear energy and you get electric current!”

The choice of the carbon nanotube tiles is based on the fact that they are the best suited for creating electricity using a radioactive material since they can be implanted directly where radiation is at the highest. The carbon nanotube tiles are also capable of harvesting power directly from a fission reactor’s radiation.

David Poston, of the US Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory is quoted as saying that the developments were highly innovative but it would take many more years to perfect the technology.

www.lanl.gov