I'm guessing there _are_ applications where you don't need a lot of power, but you do want it over a long time and without needing to charge or replace batteries.
It's also easy to imagine places where, whilst power is available, there are manufacturing advantages in not needing to. For example it might make economic sense to have self-powered wirelessly-connected sensors on car bumpers just to avoid the manufacturing cost of wiring them all up?
This thing generates so little power you couldn’t charge a capacitor up quickly enough or keep one charged with the leakage.
Whilst we do have long lasting applications in places, a pacemaker was a poor choice of the article.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2008/10/23/217918/x-rays-ma...
> The perovskite betavoltaic cell achieved impressive parameters, including a short-circuit current density of 15.01 nA cm−2, an open-circuit voltage of 2.75 mV, and an energy conversion efficiency of 1.83%, all of which represent significant improvements over previous works.
For an arbitrary definition of "function". I don't think a modern phone would achieve a meaningful function at that level. The cellular modem alone blows past that budget many times over. Even an old rotary phone went over 1W.
Apple's efficient 5G "C1" modem used in the iPhone 16e is still at ~0.7W. The Qualcomm models used in the iPhone 16 are 0.8-0.9W.
Today we juggle with ~15+Wh batteries (the "capacitor") and 30+W fast chargers (the "power source") and still need better.
But for the question asked higher in the thread, it would never be comparable to a "real" battery. This would be a very special purpose battery.
For example, in the past cardiac pacemakers had been used with nuclear batteries. However, there is a risk that the pacemaker will be “forgotten” after death, and something that is actually radioactive hazardous waste will be disposed of via crematoria or cemeteries.
Another area of application for nuclear batteries is space exploration.
Oh, maybe size as RTGs are bulky.
edit: there have been very small RTGs for use in pacemakers. The difference is really that these are not thermal but use the beta flux directly.
Nope. I'm fine with recharging my batteries every day, thank you very much.
The least the society needs is nuclear waste thrown all over the place. People still didn't learn how to recycle regular batteries.
"which could power small devices for decades"
Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will likely fail, because:
[ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale.
[ ] it will be too expensive for users.
[ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles.
[ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels.
[ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures.
[ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable.
[ ] it has too short of a lifetime.
[ ] its charge rate is too slow.
[ ] its materials are too toxic.
[ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode.
[ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care.
[ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then.
[ ] by this time it ships li-ion advances will match it.
[ ] your claims are lies
More importantly, there is no claim that it is better than li-ion. They're targeting low power devices used for very long times where replacement is impossible or undesirable.
pixelpoet•6mo ago
benterix•6mo ago