It is the gamma radiation of nuclear waste

Research in The field of batteries It does not cease. And it is understandable that it is so. The popularization of the electric car requires that these energy storage devices have The best possible benefits. As we suggest in the headline, the protagonist of this article is a technology that pursues Develop nuclear batteries For electronic devices. This idea is the fruit of an investigation developed by a group of engineers from Ohio State University (USA).

In the article they have published in Optical materials: x They argue that it is possible to use the radioactive waste resulting from the activity of the fission reactors in operation to generate the electricity that many electronic devices require. “We are taking advantage of something that is considered a waste and trying to transform it into a treasure,” has declared Raymond Caonuclear engineer and one of the authors of the article. To test their idea they have manufactured a small prototype battery that has an approximate volume of 4 cubic centimeters.

Its plan consists of introducing CESIO-137 or cobalt-60, two radioactive chemical elements that are usually the product of nuclear fission, with the purpose of using Gamma radiation They emit for Generate a small amount of electricity. Its prototype delivered 288 nanovatos with Cesio-137 and 1.5 microvatts with cobalt-60. It is evident that it is very little electricity, but these scientists are able to improve their technology enough to feed some not very demanding electronic devices, such as small sensors or monitors that require little maintenance.

In any case, they do not propose these batteries for the consumer market. If they manage to refine their technology, they maintain that it can be used on devices housed near the facilities in which the radioactive residue occurs, such as, for example, inside the nuclear plants. On the other hand, they ensure that their battery can be handled safely and will not contaminate the environment. Gamma radiation is very penetrating, which will force them to put a very robust protective enclosure. In addition, they leave another question in the air: it is not clear what the useful life of such a battery will be.

Gamma is a form of ionizing radiation

Radioactivity is the process of natural origin that explains how An atomic nucleus Unstable loses energy in the attempt to achieve a more stable state. And to achieve this emits radiation. Around the nucleus orbit one or several elementary particles even much more tiny and with negative electric charge to which we call electrons. The nucleus, in turn, is made up of one or more protons, which are particles with positive electric charge. The simplest atom That we can find in nature is that of Protio (Hydrogen-1), an isotope of hydrogen that has a single proton in its nucleus and a single electron orbiting around it.

The problem is that matter is not composed only of protio, but also of many other more complex and heavy chemical elements, and that, therefore, have more protons in their nucleus and more electrons orbiting around it. How is it possible that there is more than one proton in the nucleus If all of them have a positive electric charge? The reasonable thing is to think that they could not be close together because having the same elementary electric charge would repel. And yes, this idea is consistent. Those responsible for solving this dilemma are neutrons, the particles that live with the protons in the atomic nucleus.

Unlike protons, neutrons have neutral global electric charge, so they do not “feel” either repulsion or electromagnetic attraction to which protons and electrons are exposed. The function of neutrons is none other than stabilizing the nucleus, allowing several protons to live in it that, otherwise, would repel. And they manage to do so thanks to the action of one of the four fundamental forces of nature: strong nuclear interaction.

The other three forces are electromagnetic interaction, gravity and weak nuclear interaction. Physicists usually place this same level The Higgs fieldwhich is another fundamental interaction that explains How particles acquire their massbut to facilitate their understanding, the texts usually collect as fundamental forces the four that I have mentioned a little higher because they are somehow with which we are all familiar.

The nucleones, which are the protons and neutrons of the atomic nucleus, manage to stay together and overcome the natural repulsion that protons face because the presence of neutrons allows strong nuclear force to exercise as a glue capable of imposing itself to electromagnetic force. Strong nuclear interaction has a very small reach, but at short distances its intensity is enormous. The important thing about all this is that neutrons, as I advanced a few lines above, act stabilizing the atomic nucleus, so that as an atom has more protons, it will also need that in its nucleus there are more neutrons so that the attractive strong force manages to impose itself to the repulsive electromagnetic force.

Interestingly, the balance between the amount of protons and neutrons is very delicate. An atom is stable if its nucleus has a precise amount of nucleons and the distribution of these between protons and neutrons allows strong nuclear interaction to act as “glue.” For this reason in nature we can only find A finite amount of chemical elements: those that collect the periodic table with which we are all to a greater or lesser extent familiar. Any other combination of protons and neutrons would not allow to maintain that fine balance, giving rise to an unstable atom.

What differentiates a stable atom from an unstable one is that in the nucleus of the latter the strong nuclear interaction and electromagnetic force are not in equilibrium, so the atom needs to modify its structure to achieve a state of less energy that allows it to adopt a more stable configuration. A stable atom is “comfortable” with its current structure and does not need to do anything, but an unstable one needs to detach from a part of its energy to achieve the state of less energy we just talked about.

In that case, how does the atom get to part with a part of its energy? The answer is surprising: resorting to a quantum mechanism known as “tunnel effect” that allows you to do something that a priori seems impossible, and that is nothing other than overcome an energy barrier. This quantum effect is complex and very little intuitive, but, fortunately, we do not need to deepen it to clearly understand how radioactivity works. What is important is that we know that an unstable atom has four different mechanisms that can help you modify its structure to adopt a stable configuration: alpha radiation, beta, reverse beta and gamma.

The first of these mechanisms, alpha radiation, allows the atom to get rid of a part of its nucleus by emitting an alpha particle, which is constituted by two protons and two neutrons. The following mechanism is beta radiation, which needs a neutron of the atomic nucleus to become a proton, and during this process it also emits an electron and an antineutrino. Inverse beta radiation works just unlike beta radiation: a proton is transformed into a neutron and this process emits an antielectron and a neutrino, which are the antiparticles of the electron and the antineutrino emitted by beta radiation.

And, finally, gamma radiation, which is the most energetic and the most penetrating of all, requires the emission of a high -energy photon, usually known as Rayo Gamma, so that The atomic nucleus maintains its original structure. Some of these high -energy photons are able to cross very thick concrete walls and lead plates, so this is the most dangerous radiation form of all.

As we have just seen, radioactivity allows unstable atoms to part with a part of their energy with the purpose of achieving a less energy and more stable state, but what really happens with that energy? The principle of conservation of energy says that it cannot be destroyed, so the particles emitted by the unstable atom as a result of any of the four forms of radiation that we have just talked about are necessarily taken. This energy causes the emitted particles to be fired as tiny bullets that have the ability to interact with the matter they find in their path.

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