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

[EEVblog]

Dave debunks the marketing claims of self-charging Nano Diamond Batteries in the first 10 minutes using their own material. The rest of the video is cream on top.
NDB Inc supposedly have a nuclear nano diamond self-charging battery that will revolutionise the energy industry and power electric vehicle and mobile phones.
TLDR; it's no better than existing 100uW commercial betavoltaic batteries, but has an added graphene supercapacitor in the AA package.The rest is marketing BS.

[helius]

Previously: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/diamonds-powered-nuclear-batteries/

How could you honestly market a betavoltaic energy device? "Nanoamps until long after civilization collapses"? Sounds catchy.

[Bud]

When i hear "Our product will revolutionise the industry!" , i turn and run as fast as i can.

[quarros]

I got this sent to me yesterday by a friend. My reaction was:

"Be careful of the bullshit rays. Unlike Gamma rays this type of radiation cannot be blocked by lead. It seeps around the corners and penetrates everything. Extended exposure can lead to serious bodily harm."

However later I took the time to look around to see if this was actually a thing, other than marketing BS and this is what i found:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925963517307495
(To those who do not have access to it use sci-hub.tw)

If you forget the marketing it is actually an interesting read.

[BrianHG]

If they were a penny each, and I could get them in better packaging, then maybe yes, buying 2500 units for 250mW continuous may have use if I can stick that into the area 1/4 the size of a shoe box, something like an old lantern battery.

Anything more than a penny means I'm better off with using a bunch of D cells and live with replacing them every few years or so.

[edy]

There are some potential uses for this technology but yeah, the marketing wanker bull$#!t is great with this one! 

Applications:

1. remote controls (TV, radio, garage door opener, etc):

  - intermittent use, it would have enough time to "charge" the supercap in-between
  - fairly low power consumption during utilization
  - right now can retrofit existing remotes with their AA or AAA batteries
  - unlikely to be able to fit into coin-cell format (which many remotes also use)
  - maybe in the future will integrate into remote control PCB's
  - however, do you really care if your remote battery lasts for 300 years?


2. low-energy bluetooth type devices (keyboards, mouse, sensors, etc)

  - the key is the energy charging vs. discharging (through use) curve
  - battery can come fully charged, and yes it will slowly discharge with use...
      but will the "trickle" charge produced by the piss-ant 100 uW power source
     be enough to keep up with the typical usage of the device?

3. smart watches, calculators, memory
 
  - today's smart-watches (except for ultra-high efficiency) need a fair bit of energy
  - most fitness watches with heart rate monitors and any sort of connectivity to
    your phone use a lot of power
  - a simple digital watch or even mechanical without many features may work
     (my Casio sports watch features a 10-year lithium battery, will an NDB fit inside?)
  - perhaps a supercap to charge in the background to power the light button when
    you want to illuminate the watch
  - calculators that can operate on uW source can operate on a solar cell, so
    unless you want to work in the dark (in which case you still need a light source)
    is there any advantage to an NDB or why not just use a solar panel on the calculator?
  - memory rention/refresh/backup power source, not so much an issue today with Flash

4. biomedical devices

  - advantage to not having to replace batteries or require surgical replacement
  - potentially back a device with enough NDB's and supercaps to match the energy
    usage of device/monitor/log so that it can stay in longer than the human lifespan
  - of course, with medical technology advancing it may not be practical using an old device

5. emergency LED lighting/flashlights/radios

  - say a 3.6 V LED with current of 20 milliamperes will use 72 milliwatts of power
  - you would need 720 of the 100 uW NDB's just to keep 1 LED on indefinitely
  - a simple handcrank could be used intermittently to charge up a supercap
     and light up an LED/radio emergency flashlight for minutes
  - ...again... no practical purpose for an NDB chip
 
I still can't think of a practical use for these things. They need to pack 100x more radioactive stuff into those chips and bring us up to maybe 10,000 uW (or 10 mW output) to get somewhere more practical.  I read on a forum that a small solar-cell from a solar-cell-powered calculator will show 2 volts at less than 5 milliamps, or 2V * .005A = 0.01 watts (10 milliW)... or 10,000 uW, which is 100x more than this 100 uW than the NDB chip. So if they can increase the power output by 100x to what they have now, *MAYBE* it will have some practical use in a solar-cell-powered calculator and some other devices.

Total marketing bull$#!t, right on. When will they even learn? 

Hey what ever happened to the Thorium-powered car? 

[isometrik]

Can you imagine using these Nano Diamond Batteries with a Batteriser. 

[EEVblog]

All of them tie into Orb Group (https://orb.group/), an incubator with fat claims about the facilities they offer (https://orb.group/laboratories-cleanroom/), but with absolutely nothing to show for. They claim to have amazing facilities in the making though (https://orb.group/plot-building/), but all of the images from their portfolio seem to be stolen from a concept design by HOK done in 2012 (https://archinect.com/news/article/62390166/hok-team-selected-to-design-new-global-hub-for-biomedical-research-in-italy). Incidentally, there seem to be a serious company called Orb Group with a very similar logo...(http://orbgroup.co.uk)

They have the same "facilities page on the NDB website.
Great find 

[EEVblog]

Hah, I missed that part of the NDB page 

I might add that their celebratory picture (https://ndb.technology/ndb-as-the-winner-of-orano-call-has-started-collaboration-with-worlds-largest-nuclear-power-and-renewable-energy-company/) is also stolen, this time from the "hello tomorrow" conference (https://magazine.impactscool.com/en/speciali/hello-tomorrow-ecco-svelato-il-potere-della-deep-tech/).

I also noted that at the time, but I figured they were in the picture somewhere as they did appear to win something at this event.

[coppercone2]

if you are gonna pay to put that in a remote control (complex non reliable circuit with a non reliable super capacitor) over buying the cheapest of AA batteries you can safely throw away into trash, I feel bad for you.

I promise you won't go bankrupt buying a few packages of batteries once a decade (the people considering this use the remote control battery till they are 3 inches away from the TV, then they don't watch TV for 6 months because they need to buy batteries, but mean while pay for the hook up). What would it be like 50$ for a AA?

I like batteries, you put them in when you need them and its done.

[EEVblog]

if you are gonna pay to put that in a remote control (complex non reliable circuit with a non reliable super capacitor) over buying the cheapest of AA batteries you can safely throw away into trash, I feel bad for you. I promise you won't go bankrupt buying a few packages of batteries once a decade (the people considering this use the remote control battery till they are 3 inches away from the TV, then they don't watch TV for 6 months because they need to buy batteries, but mean while pay for the hook up). What would it be like 50$ for a AA?
I like batteries, you put them in when you need them and its done.

Heaps of people in the comments mentioning remote controls. Why? Replacing a couple of batteries every couple of years is nothing. If you want longer life then just buy lithium ones and they'll last forever.

[quarros]

Hey what ever happened to the Thorium-powered car? 

Car? Forget Cars. There is not a single working thorium based reactor anywhere on the face of the earth.

[KT88]

I doubt that they would ever get a RoHS certifiation for that utterly stupid thing...

[Cerebus]

Hey what ever happened to the Thorium-powered car? 

Car? Forget Cars. There is not a single working thorium based reactor anywhere on the face of the earth.

There's not a currently working thorium reactor, but there has been, THTR-300 in Germany. Now shut down awaiting decommissioning. It was actually on the grid for a while, producing 308 MW (not sure if that's MW_e or MW_t).

[quarros]

Hey what ever happened to the Thorium-powered car? 

Car? Forget Cars. There is not a single working thorium based reactor anywhere on the face of the earth.

There's not a currently working thorium reactor, but there has been, THTR-300 in Germany. Now shut down awaiting decommissioning. It was actually on the grid for a while, producing 308 MW (not sure if that's MW_e or MW_t).

That was at most a hybrid reactor. It used Uranium 235 with some thorium mixed in.

[Pancreat]

Here's a link to what appears to be the most "informative" I could dig up: https://ndb.technology/pitch/NDB_Investor_Pack.pdf . The technical summary starts on page 18.
The entire /pitch/ directory (https://ndb.technology/pitch/) appears to be the materials they use to promote themselves to investors.

[thm_w]

Heaps of people in the comments mentioning remote controls. Why? Replacing a couple of batteries every couple of years is nothing. If you want longer life then just buy lithium ones and they'll last forever.

Lithium AAA is 1250mAh, basically the same as an alkaline AAA. So lifespan will be similar if you are using it regularly.

https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/l92.pdf
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/39630.pdf

This does have a viable use in TV remotes, etc. as eby has listed, IF they could get the cost down to a reasonable level, say <$20. Which is highly unlikely.

edit: 1200mAh * 1.2V = 1.4Whr = 164uW. So they'd need to up the specs if your battery dies in only a year of use.

[Bud]

A typical application that outlast TV remote control may be car key fob. I had mine for 15 years.

Edit: it did not need a nuclear power source though 

[EEVblog]

Heaps of people in the comments mentioning remote controls. Why? Replacing a couple of batteries every couple of years is nothing. If you want longer life then just buy lithium ones and they'll last forever.

Lithium AAA is 1250mAh, basically the same as an alkaline AAA. So lifespan will be similar if you are using it regularly.

But the characteristic curves are very different!
And that can lead to a massive increase in product battery life if using a Lithium. Depends on the cutout voltage of your product. The Lithium can maintain 1.4V for almost the entire life of the battery, which is vastly better than Alkaline. Some products can get 3-4 times the life span.

[coppercone2]

but it also leads to nasty surprises with simple equipment that normally warns you it is running out of juice. This parameter is only relevant to important things like flash lights. Actually not sure what else is important that runs on AA. and is also simple.

I feel like its important because a dead flash light can cause serious trouble. If you use the same one for a while you get a good feeling of how it behaves and what status it has left, if you don't replace the batteries at every instant.

And for things like motion sensor lights, so long they vary brightness proportionally to voltage, you get immediately know how long you can slack off before it becomes a problem. It can be very annoying if you come home to a suddenly dead light (i.e. key/stairwell illuminator).

[alpher]

I just don't get the somewhat vicious negativity towards this thing.
Dave bases his opinion on a single sample pics of a through hole chip that's been taken down anyway.
Taking that DIP14 (or whatever it supposed to be) as an example he concludes that the whole thing is at best a joke having only very nichest applications.
Well lets speculate a little Dave style, suppose that the're able to stuff lets say 100 of that DIP chip structures into a single modern package ? Suddenly a 10mW battery emerges, possible? Most likely.
Secondly suppose that they can somehow scale they energy output by an order of magnitude or 2 ? Why not ?

[EEVblog]

Well lets speculate a little Dave style, suppose that the're able to stuff lets say 100 of that DIP chip structures into a single modern package ? Suddenly a 10mW battery emerges, possible? Most likely.

Sure, ok. That's still not even close to revolutionising the energy industry.
That AA would still take 400 hours to self re-charge assuming zero losses.
Again, still useful in niche apps of course, but won't revolusionise much or power that EV. And you've already gone two orders of magnitude above what they supposedly have.

Secondly suppose that they can somehow scale they energy output by an order of magnitude or 2 ? Why not ?

Why not 5 orders of magnitude?
I can play that game too.

Looks at their pitch deck linked above, try and find ANY mention of actual power output. It's all just pie in the sky marketing wankery.

[EEVblog]

I feel like its important because a dead flash light can cause serious trouble.

Err, then don't use it in that application. We are talking remote controls here.

[EEVblog]

LOL

[EEVblog]

Question to ponder:
Let's say this can magically scale to an EV sized battery. The radiation never stops producing energy, energy unless consumed in some other way will be given off as heat. Where does the waste heat go?
Useful on spacecaft, you can heat your electronics with it. In an EV, not so much...

[pfeerick]

Dave bases his opinion on a single sample pics of a through hole chip that's been taken down anyway.

No it hasn't... it's the second picture of the NewAtlas article @ https://newatlas.com/energy/nano-diamond-self-charging-batteries-ndb

And a reverse google image search for the image appears to suggest it is only present in the marketing hyperbole materials... but I didn't go through all the search results...

The thing that would be interesting to find out is the actual energy density - thus it would be possible to work out if the IC package could have a higher output source, or if 100uW really is the limit, thus making this a very disruptive technology... in an alternate reality. 

[Bud]

LOL

Holy crap, i was wondering what is the deal with IC type packaging. Now if someone could explain how they fit the supercapacitor in it. 

[Tsippaduida]

NDB promises bit too much. Has anyone looked into what these Betavoltaic components cost? They are hideously expensive even when there are no diamond manufacturing involved.

This is quite fresh technology, but the principle is known and there are even competition. In addition to CityLabs, there's Widetronics: https://www.widetronix.com/products

And to look into power densities of the original diamond-based solution you can use the numbers from http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/events/2016/annual-lecture-2016.html

"The actual amount of carbon-14 in each battery has yet to be decided but one battery, containing 1g of carbon-14, would deliver 15 Joules per day.  This is less than an AA battery.  Standard alkaline AA batteries are designed for short timeframe discharge: one battery weighing about 20g has an energy storage rating of 700J/g. If operated continuously, this would run out in 24 hours. Using carbon-14 the battery would take 5,730 years to reach 50 per cent power"

Internet said that betavoltaic batteries cost around $2,200 each (unconfirmed number). And this is from current technologies, without expensive diamond manufacturing process.

They need to make several break throughs before the power density is such that phones can be powered with these. Not impossible (maybe), but don't hold your breath in waiting.

[EEVblog]

The thing that would be interesting to find out is the actual energy density - thus it would be possible to work out if the IC package could have a higher output source, or if 100uW really is the limit, thus making this a very disruptive technology... in an alternate reality. 

As far as we know, they haven't even gotten the 100uW yet, it's just a render.
Again, take a look at their very extensive investor presentation, it's got absolutely everything, right down to how much all the test equipment costs. Yet try and find a single mention of anything to do with power output.

[EEVblog]

NDB promises bit too much. Has anyone looked into what these Betavoltaic components cost? They are hideously expensive even when there are no diamond manufacturing involved.

Costing for the CityLabs 100uW unit is in the thousands of dollars per unit. Pricing is in that article I linked in the video.

[EEVblog]

Archived for reference purposes:
https://archive.is/GHVYn
https://archive.vn/GHVYn

[Domagoj T]

Question to ponder:
Let's say this can magically scale to an EV sized battery. The radiation never stops producing energy, energy unless consumed in some other way will be given off as heat. Where does the waste heat go?
Useful on spacecaft, you can heat your electronics with it. In an EV, not so much...

Even on spacecraft waste heat is a problem that needs to be accounted for.
For example, ISS has solar panels that generate about 100kW on average. But ISS also has radiators that dump 70kW of waste heat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Control_System

[helius]

The CityLabs units are expensive because tritium is expensive. The betavoltaic generator itself is an IC: which could be cheap as chips or expensive depending on materials. I would be very interested in any pointers to whitepapers describing them, but from what I know I'd guess they would be similar to monocrystalline PV panels, maybe using a stack to increase capture radius.
The diamond stuff should be similar to commercial laboratory grown diamonds, with the important detail that the ¹⁴C storage doesn't need to be a single crystal. So even synthetic diamond dust potentially could be used. My understanding is that until recently, there was only one manufacturer of large, monocrystalline synthetic diamonds by CVD and the process details were closely guarded. Has this become a commodity process? If not, there is significant business risk for any startup that hopes to perfect such a process.

Addendum: if the electrical properties of the diamonds aren't critical, it may be possible to use high pressure techniques to synthesize the diamonds, which were perfected by the 1960s. I'm not sure if any plants are still operating with this process, maybe there is equipment hiding in the former USSR? This could be a lot cheaper than CVD considering the latter's strict parameters.

[SmokedComponent]

Power ICs in all 4 directions!! No nasty 90, 180 degree turns to shoot those scarce electrons out!
Their marketing material is comparable to those soldering stock images. Good stuff!

[SMB784]

LOL

Oh my god is that real?  There's no way that's serious.

[Lord of nothing]

Costing for the CityLabs 100uW unit is in the thousands of dollars per unit. Pricing is in that article I linked in the video.

Well if it like special Medicine who the Research is adding up mostly not for the Materials that could be a reason why its so expencive.

The CityLabs units are expensive because tritium is expensive.

Why are my Chinese Tritium Marker are so cheap?

[EEVblog]

LOL

Oh my god is that real?  There's no way that's serious.

Yes, they are serious, it's in their investor pitch document to try and raise squillions of dollars.

[EEVblog]

Archived for reference purposes:
https://archive.is/GHVYn
https://archive.vn/GHVYn

Aaaaand the documents are gone!
https://ndb.technology/pitch/
They are clearly watching.

[hendorog]

Archived for reference purposes:
https://archive.is/GHVYn
https://archive.vn/GHVYn

Aaaaand the documents are gone!
https://ndb.technology/pitch/
They are clearly watching.

You are 2nd on google for "nano-diamond self charging battery" and first on youtube. I'd say it would have hit their feed pretty quick

[SMB784]

LOL

Oh my god is that real?  There's no way that's serious.

Yes, they are serious, it's in their investor pitch document to try and raise squillions of dollars.

Why did they stop at 64 pins? They could have made that humdinger in a BGA package. Real missed opportunity to fill the "I need 1000 connections to the same voltage source" niche

[EEVblog]

Archived for reference purposes:
https://archive.is/GHVYn
https://archive.vn/GHVYn

Aaaaand the documents are gone!
https://ndb.technology/pitch/
They are clearly watching.

Luckily someone re-uploaded:
https://gofile.io/d/Iorhs5

[tszaboo]

I recently finished a project, that is using 2.5uA@7.2V on average. It is a sensor for sensor network applications. Industry 4 and all that jazz. Battery replacement are very expensive, expected lifetime (by the customer) could be decades. I could imagine using something like this, if you can meet the price target.
Also, it is smaller than the batteries. And probably dont get super hot if short circuited (safety risk)

Also, you can forget about charging regular supercaps. They just dont have the lifetime. Long term test shows, that they start leaking, and that leakage could be larger than the power usage of your device.

But the target price has to be in the range of the current Lithium batteries.

[BrianHG]

See attached clip from 'NDB_One_Pager_Seed.pdf'.



Only 2.3 million?  For tech which can eventually power cars?  Cars which use enough power to also power/heat/air condition my house for 100 years...

Though I know better, as an investor, this 'puny' figure for something so powerful when I personally need over 5x that budget for year 1 to develop a AAA grade iPhone app.

These goofballs know their product is BS and don't have the balls to actually ask for 23 million let alone 50....

[EEVblog]

See attached clip from 'NDB_One_Pager_Seed.pdf'.
Only 2.3 million?  For tech which can eventually power cars?  Cars which use enough power to also power/heat/air condition my house for 100 years...
Though I know better, as an investor, this 'puny' figure for something so powerful when I personally need over 5x that budget for year 1 to develop a AAA grade iPhone app.
These goofballs know their product is BS and don't have the balls to actually ask for 23 million let alone 50....

That's smart though, get some funding to pay basic wages and you don't have to really produce anything for the first year while you wait for the big funding to come through.

But they are going to be generous and only take $80k each for the first year:

[SeanB]

You will never get that sort of project into a plastic DIP package, it will always have to be in a fully hermetic package, simply because you need to protect the inside carbon from oxygen, and also because to collect the electrons you will need a fairly high grade vacuum as well, plus somewhere to store the generated alpha particles (helium gas) before they rise up to the pressure that will inhibit the cell operation.  So minimum will be a laser welded glass seal full size 14 or 16 pin DIP package with thin wall stainless steel top and bottom, with a small glass plate inside with the active material sputtered on it, and connected to the one power pin, with the other pins all shorted together and bonded to top and bottom covers as collector.  Laser welded in a ultra high vacuum chamber so that the inner cell is as close to empty as possible of any trace of gas, and likely also baked at 600C there for a few hours as well to get rid of any adsorbed gas in the inner parts. 

Vacuum chamber, laser, laser aiming devices, airlock to allow parts in and out are all likely to be custom made, and production rate will be low, based on a good long number of hours per cycle per expensive jig. Only things off the shelf will be the laser itself, and the turbomolecular pumps to pull the chamber down, though the airlocks will be similar to existing SEM sample entry ports, and your window allowing the laser in would probably be an optically pure diamond window.

To scale up just put more surface area of active material, and a bigger enclosure, but there you run into limits before you have to class it as radioactive, which is why smoke detectors, while actually containing radioactive material, are not classed as hazardous radioactive waste.

A rough and ready way to DIY ( if you have a glass forming ability and can achieve neon tube levels of evacuation at home) is to use the ready made smoke detector active emitters in a vacuum tube, wonder if there are any DIY videos of this out there.

[Fungus]

Well lets speculate a little Dave style, suppose that the're able to stuff lets say 100 of that DIP chip structures into a single modern package ? Suddenly a 10mW battery emerges, possible? Most likely.

We can revolutionize the world of TV remote controls for only a couple of thousand $$$ each and a remote control the size of a shoe box...?

 

[Labrat101]

Question to ponder:
Let's say this can magically scale to an EV sized battery. The radiation never stops producing energy, energy unless consumed in some other way will be given off as heat. Where does the waste heat go?
Useful on spacecaft, you can heat your electronics with it. In an EV, not so much...

My opinion on this it might have a low radiation leakage . If you remember way back they banned the old luminous watches as they gave off radiation .
As they could be a health hazard .
The Governments has Millions of tons of Nuke wast . and would cost $
$ millions to dump.   
By putting a few ug of waste into trillions of batteries /TV remote's etc.etc
and sell them to us i.e. the dumb public . they solve their problem & make money
as well in the deal .. and when people start taking them a Part to see how they
work .. ( No names mentioned Dave ) And become ill from some weird poisoning
They win again Medical services etc . And the EKG they but us on does it also have these leaking Radiation cells ??
If my old luminous watch made a Geiger counter tick what do a dozen of these do!!   
 And the waste heat is this infrared?? or some thing else heat radiation can
emanate as other unknowns  maybe harmful or not we are taking their word
 for this 

 
  RNS

[Lord of nothing]

The Governments has Millions of tons of Nuke wast .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=deadly+dust

[tggzzz]

Here's the competing technology, as noted in EDN...

[Labrat101]

Just love the phrase .
When the card senses a Power failure, EXPLOSIVE Bolts eject Moderator and control rods from the reactor's interior
within 20 us ..
This has a full rating of 20KW  That would power a few houses .
The BS battery is only 20uw   

  This would be worth having . A nuke in the cellar 
 & The 200ft extension cord bit short ... I would op for a 2000 mtr   
  + you can use 12 MS dos disk as a blast shield..
  & only $2.3 million   ... is that on  "Ali_achbar_explosive . com"

Cool find   

[tggzzz]

Just love the phrase .
When the card senses a Power failure, EXPLOSIVE Bolts eject Moderator and control rods from the reactor's interior
within 20 us ..
This has a full rating of 20KW  That would power a few houses .
The BS battery is only 20uw   

  This would be worth having . A nuke in the cellar 
 & The 200ft extension cord bit short ... I would op for a 2000 mtr   
  + you can use 12 MS dos disk as a blast shield..
 
Cool find   

Re-finding it is more appropriate. I found that in '86.

Personally I like the delivery schedule

[Labrat101]

The 23 volume evacuation manual  is a Must have   
The Blank form were not really to post . They were for the WC .
 Page 22 the instruction read
  "put your head between your Legs ... and Kiss your Ass good Bye.   

I have seen this manual cool reading . it was in an old Archive library in a high tec company
 I use to work for night shift got boring . many moons ago.

 I don't think that any of these were actual manufactured .
 and was started as a Bad April fools prank .  note the date April 1986

  There is a photo of Regus Patoff  (comic character )

[BrianHG]

Here's the competing technology, as noted in EDN...

LOL, that April Fools reactor's price happens to be 2.3 million, the exact same figure as NDB's year one investment.

A coincidence?

[Labrat101]

LOL, that April Fools reactor's price happens to be 2.3 million, the exact same figure as NDB's year one investment.

A coincidence?

 Yes.. it is Just an April fool ..  Look close at the picture .. scsi top casing module from a prototype
 that was being made in the same FAB . also just think for a moment 20kw reactor will great
too much heat to just have a H2o2 cooling system under the desk .. 
Regus Patoff   Taken from the comic ..  HA Ha its still fooling 

[Fungus]

Is 100uW the continuous output or just the peak from the supercap?

[thm_w]

Is 100uW the continuous output or just the peak from the supercap?

It would be continuous.
The supercap is a completely different product. Its the AA battery form factor, which is just a design idea, not anything close to being made yet. Someone in the comments pointed out the PCB render was just a generic TP4056 charger board they grabbed online.

[EEVblog]

Is 100uW the continuous output or just the peak from the supercap?

It would be continuous.
The supercap is a completely different product. Its the AA battery form factor, which is just a design idea, not anything close to being made yet.

So is the 100uW DIP chip 

[SMB784]

Is 100uW the continuous output or just the peak from the supercap?

It would be continuous.
The supercap is a completely different product. Its the AA battery form factor, which is just a design idea, not anything close to being made yet.

So is the 100uW DIP chip 

100uW DIP chip that supplies power in all four directions.  Key selling point you missed there.

[Bud]

  There is a photo of Regus Patoff  (comic character )

Yes PO Box U-235 

[Fungus]

So is the 100uW DIP chip 

100uW DIP chip that supplies power in all four directions.  Key selling point you missed there.

I could have sworn the 'D' in "DIP" stood for "Dual". 

[timelessbeing]

Saw this in the Google news feed today.

https://www.mining.com/nano-diamond-battery-that-lasts-for-28000-years-closer-to-becoming-commercial-product/

What does "40% charge" even mean???

[timelessbeing]

Applications:

1. remote controls (TV, radio, garage door opener, etc):

Is there even enough energy for 2 or 3 hours of steady clicking? How powerful are those IR LEDs... 20 mA?

[timelessbeing]

I just don't get the somewhat vicious negativity towards this thing.

What don't you get about scams? They're nothing new in Silicon Valley.

suppose that the're able to stuff lets say 100 of that DIP chip structures into a single modern package

You weren't paying attention. It's an energy source based on a radioactive substance. The volume is dictated by the quantity of that substance. It's not an electronic circuit that you can just scale down.

But it doesn't matter. Until we see a prototype, the device only exists in someone's imagination.

[timelessbeing]

it will always have to be in a fully hermetic package, simply because you need to protect the inside carbon from oxygen, and also because to collect the electrons you will need a fairly high grade vacuum

The CEO claims that the device "requires access to natural air in order to power devices"

[Fungus]

Saw this in the Google news feed today.

Three people have forwarded this to me in the last couple of days. I point out that it's about enough for a TV remote control but it'll cost as much as the TV and their reply is, "Well, it's just the first step".

[Lord of nothing]

Hey Guys (and Girls) i saw a documentary or some similar about small transmitter who help resercher tracking Birds. The send only some thiny burst. So how about such system who store the energy and send them out as a burst in some ms or pico s?

[Fungus]

Hey Guys (and Girls) i saw a documentary or some similar about small transmitter who help resercher tracking Birds. The send only some thiny burst. So how about such system who store the energy and send them out as a burst in some ms or pico s?

Nobody's denying that there might be niche applications for these. The problem is:
* In your application a CR2032 coin cell will probably work better/cheaper - birds don't live for 23,000 years so no need for this
* These batteries don't exist yet, all there is is a 3D rendered picture of a chip with a logo on it.
* These batteries aren't going to "revolutionize" anything. They won't charge your phone, they certainly won't power a car, as claimed.

[Labrat101]

  There is a photo of Regus Patoff  (comic character )

Yes PO Box U-235 

You also forgot the delivery Time Seven years ..  .. I hope someone kept their 12inch floppy drive
  it should be arriving  any time sooooon .     
 The Power connection not shown in the picture are on the bottom 2 ceramic 1inch BSF  terminals mounts.
 20kw @ voltage un really high.
All the best to the author  Prof R. Patoff

[EEVblog]

And the DIP and QFP package images are now both completely gone from the Newatlas article! Replaced with the AA image.
And this page claims they have funding from Alchemist Accelerator, but there is no mention of this on their website at all.

https://angel.co/company/ndbtechnology/funding

[BrianHG]

How could you tell that the 100uW was coming from the nuclear diamond battery.  It's such a small figure that for all we know, it may just be the diamond tuning into and rectifying some local radio broadcast...

I bet I can get more DC power from an AM crystal radio's germanium diode with a good antenna tuned into a strong local station.

[BrianHG]

  There is a photo of Regus Patoff  (comic character )

Yes PO Box U-235 

You also forgot the delivery Time Seven years ..  .. I hope someone kept their 12inch floppy drive
  it should be arriving  any time sooooon .     
 The Power connection not shown in the picture are on the bottom 2 ceramic 1inch BSF  terminals mounts.
 20kw @ voltage un really high.
All the best to the author  Prof R. Patoff

Hun?  Don't they need to at least prove their claims to a any extent before selling any product.
Delivery Time Seven Centuries, not years.
How do they know the ICs and supercaps wont fail and rust a few hundred years in?
I will not throw out money on a battery which claims 28k years if it's only been in development for 6 years and manufactured during the last year.
How can they prove their 28K year claim?
If I'm going to buy a 28K year battery, I need proof it lasts at least a good century or two at a minimum.

At least the Oxford Electric Bell's battery has a proven 180 year track record.  If NDB cant show me at least this degree of proof, their BS.  Now if NDB said they would purchase the Oxford Electric Bell, dissect it's battery and replicate a modern version of it, then I would think about investing.

[Fungus]

How could you tell that the 100uW was coming from the nuclear diamond battery.  It's such a small figure that for all we know, it may just be the diamond tuning into and rectifying some local radio broadcast...

I bet I can get more DC power from an AM crystal radio's germanium diode with a good antenna tuned into a strong local station.

Good point. How much can ordinary/existing energy harvesting devices get?

[EEVblog]

And the DIP and QFP package images are now both completely gone from the Newatlas article! Replaced with the AA image.
And this page claims they have funding from Alchemist Accelerator, but there is no mention of this on their website at all.

https://angel.co/company/ndbtechnology/funding

Sounds like we have enough at this point to know for sure that this is a clear scam by someone with no intents to make anything. Their method of operation seem to be:

• Copy-paste existing companies or start-ups, trends in the market, whatever. Chose a name and web addresses which make you similar to other companies (e.g. orb.group vs. orbgroup.co.uk/)
• Add any number of buzzwords and world-problem-solving powers to your "tech"
• Have an overwhelming, text-rich, "seemingly-technical-but-not-really" portfolio. Even better, be involved with multiple such "webpage-only" companies, such that it seems like you are really busy doing stuff.
• Claim to be "present" in many places of the world by subscribing to any number of virtual "offices", e.g. from Regus https://www.regus.de/en-de/virtual-office?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI56yN5-_J6wIVhKZ3Ch06cAcuEAAYASAAEgLHvfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds. (I find it almost incredible that such a service can exist...)
• ... profit?

I really wonder how well this works in the end. They got lucky this time around with Techcrunch unquestionably picking up on their press release (which is IMHO really the biggest issue here). Having a closer look at Arkenlight, it seems like that company has been one of the largest inspirations for NDB. Even their logos are very similar. Their CEO updated his comment I pictured above (attached here). They claim a journalist reached out to Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (which was name-dropped in the original NDB press release), and shockingly, Lawrence Livermore had never heard about NDB. Hopefully, someone will report on this soon and force Techcrunch to write an update article/officially redact the original article.

I've heard on the street that there is no prototype.
I might contact LL myself.

[EEVblog]

Found the PRweb press release:
https://www.prweb.com/releases/ndb_inc_announces_major_technological_laboratory_breakthrough_for_the_first_universal_self_charging_nano_diamond_battery_first_beta_customers/prweb17347911.htm
https://archive.vn/EyMWA

They make very specific claims about many high profile people being involved, I might see if I can ask them to confirm...

[Fungus]

Yes, they include a lot of real people with real accomplishments (some of them are also listed on their Company page  https://ndb.technology/company/). I found that  none of them acknowledge any connection to NDB on their LinkedIn profiles at least. The pictures used on NDBs company page are generally cropped versions taken from Linked-In.

If they're in LinkedIn then it's really easy to drop them a line and ask if they know their name is being used to promote this.

[Bud]

Yes, they include a lot of real people with real accomplishments (some of them are also listed on their Company page  https://ndb.technology/company/). I found that  none of them acknowledge any connection to NDB on their LinkedIn profiles at least. The pictures used on NDBs company page are generally cropped versions taken from Linked-In. I think it would be great if you could follow-up on this.

There was a plethora of real people with real accomplishments with uBeam, wasnt it.

[timelessbeing]

It’s not necessarily a scam. Just a not very useful product with extremely optimistic claims. We can’t prove their personal intentions one way or another.

[Labrat101]

How could you tell that the 100uW was coming from the nuclear diamond battery.  It's such a small figure that for all we know, it may just be the diamond tuning into and rectifying some local radio broadcast...

Good point. How much can ordinary/existing energy harvesting devices get?

Short all the terminal out . and Run and wait for the news to see what it was
 on the Richter scale      
  Maybe there factory was at   Beirut   

[eliocor]

Did anyone notice the DIP is 22 pin (11+11)?
Rather nonstandard package....

[Fungus]

It’s not necessarily a scam. Just a not very useful product with extremely optimistic claims.

It's not actually a product... it's more of a "brochure" atm.

We can’t prove their personal intentions one way or another.

Not by the court-of-law definition of "prove", no.

But ... they're walking like ducks and quacking like ducks. 

[EEVblog]

Yes, they include a lot of real people with real accomplishments (some of them are also listed on their Company page  https://ndb.technology/company/). I found that  none of them acknowledge any connection to NDB on their LinkedIn profiles at least. The pictures used on NDBs company page are generally cropped versions taken from Linked-In. I think it would be great if you could follow-up on this.

There was a plethora of real people with real accomplishments with uBeam, wasnt it.

uBeam is very different.
It had major funding, and yes it did have some of the best talent in the world (I know several of them personally), and produced some excellent technology, but all that talent told Meredith it wasn't practical and that they should pivot into a niche. She didn't, so they all ultimately left.

[EEVblog]

But ... they're walking like ducks and quacking like ducks. 

It's amazing what you hear after you put out a public video like this 
Yes, there is much waddling and quacking...

[Fungus]

But ... they're walking like ducks and quacking like ducks. 

It's amazing what you hear after you put out a public video like this 
Yes, there is much waddling and quacking...

Plus they're not really bringing anything new to the table, these things exist.

[timelessbeing]

It's still spreading.

"The battery can be used to power devices and machines of any size, from aircraft and rockets to electric vehicles and smartphones."


https://www.energylivenews.com/2020/09/02/us-startup-unveils-battery-made-from-nuclear-waste-that-could-last-up-to-28000-years/

[VK3DRB]

There is a practical use. Flash an LED every blue moon in my coffin. The entire circuit with the could be encapsulated in resin so it lasts until the Great Tribulation. At least I'll get some entertainment whilst waiting... waiting... waiting....

Notice the spelling on their AA cell (Dave seemed to have missed it). It says "Diamnond Battery." Along with the PTH pins on SMD parts, its a big red flag. I wonder if some of them work at the "Microsoft Help Desk" as their daytime job.

[EEVblog]

And coincidentally, orb.group have just removed all their old content:
https://orb.group/
Archive here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200122153436/https://orb.group/



Their energy group is still there though:
https://orbep.com/

[EEVblog]

Plus they're not really bringing anything new to the table, these things exist.

Shame their prototype doesn't seem to exist either...

[Fungus]

There is a practical use. Flash an LED every blue moon in my coffin. The entire circuit with the could be encapsulated in resin so it lasts until the Great Tribulation. At least I'll get some entertainment whilst waiting... waiting... waiting....

Should be easy to do. 100uW is easily enough to power an Arduino in sleep mode with enough left over to charge a capacitor...

[Labrat101]

There is a practical use. Flash an LED every blue moon in my coffin. The entire circuit with the could be encapsulated in resin so it lasts until the Great Tribulation. At least I'll get some entertainment whilst waiting... waiting... waiting....

Should be easy to do. 100uW is easily enough to power an Arduino in sleep mode with enough left over to charge a capacitor...

You would be better off planting a lemon tree an have a few copper & Zinc plates in a jam jars underneath
as the lemons fall from the tree you will have free energy and 3v @ 200 ma ..
    Could have 2 LED's flashing all night . 

          Its also environmental friendly    

[iMo]

Interesting. Application - watch industry for example. I would buy a wrist watch with this battery inside - no need to open the watch case for ~100 years would be a great option.

[Fungus]

Interesting. Application - watch industry for example. I would buy a wrist watch with this battery inside - no need to open the watch case for ~100 years would be a great option.

I'm wearing a solar powered Casio G-Shock right now.

I can't see the solar panel anywhere but it definitely works - has a charge indicator.

(manual says it will run for six months in the dark)

[tggzzz]

Interesting. Application - watch industry for example. I would buy a wrist watch with this battery inside - no need to open the watch case for ~100 years would be a great option.

That's long been available with high-end purely mechanical wristwatches. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-winding_watch

[benst]

Interesting. Application - watch industry for example. I would buy a wrist watch with this battery inside - no need to open the watch case for ~100 years would be a great option.

I would be more interested to see the rest of the electronics inside, having a 100 year life span...

Ben

[timelessbeing]

University of Bristol responds to Dave's debunking video.

https://newatlas.com/energy/arkenlight-nuclear-diamond-batteries/


They are working on putting it in pacemakers, but apparently it doesn't scale up.

"The amount of carbon-14 you'd need to power a cell phone would ... require a mass greater than the phone itself."

[thm_w]

University of Bristol responds to Dave's debunking video.

https://newatlas.com/energy/arkenlight-nuclear-diamond-batteries/

The second thing is that this is a major game changer. We now have efficiencies where this becomes commercially relevant. It would still be considered a microbattery, but say for example, 200 microwatts. That's how much energy is needed to power a pacemaker.

For a single microwatt, we're talking about something 4 mm x 4 mm (0.15 x 0.15 in) in width and length, that's very, very shallow. The size of a fingernail, but thinner. You can mechanically stack these in any number.

Well, a device that's 10-mm (0.39-in) square, and less than 0.5 mm (0.019 in) in depth, would yield tens of microwatts. The amount of carbon-14 you'd need to power a cell phone would be about the size of a tub of vegetable spread. It can be done, but the physical bounds of carbon-14 diamond would require a mass greater than the phone itself.

So nothing has really changed here.

AA battery = 50x14mm = 2500mm²
4x4x0.5mm claimed 1uW = 8mm²
So theoretically a perfectly packed AA battery would be ~300uW. Which is not bad, but realistically with the supercap and other stuff in there, ~100uW sounds about right.

[Lord of nothing]

   Well it depend what are you want to do with that energy. A Traditional Smartphone draw a lot of power for sure. There you can replace then but a Pacemaker? Do you want get cut open for a recharge? 

[Fungus]

  Well it depend what are you want to do with that energy. A Traditional Smartphone draw a lot of power for sure. There you can replace then but a Pacemaker? Do you want get cut open for a recharge? 

It's almost as if you don't know you can charge phones wirelessly these days.

[Lord of nothing]

Sure I do but when there is a huge power outage like a Hurricane would you like hear a beep who maybe indicate that you should recharge your pacemaker?

[srruhl3701]

https://newatlas.com/energy/arkenlight-nuclear-diamond-batteries/

Looks like NDB has patents issues now. Arkenlight has the diamond patent.

[Fungus]

Sure I do but when there is a huge power outage like a Hurricane would you like hear a beep who maybe indicate that you should recharge your pacemaker?

They don't actually recharge them AFAIK. The pacemaker is under the skin near the surface and they replace the entire thing every ten years, battery and all.

And (b): Modern pacemakers are passive. They only kick in when they detect your heart going out of rhythm. You can live perfectly without one so long as you don't do anything strenuous like fighting off zombies.

[Jamal23]

So after doing some further research it seems that they are infact a legit company, just a bit overboard with the marketing, we must remember that there is a difference between claiming something, and aiming for something, it seems the project just has some pretty big aspirations, they have not stated that they have a working prototype, yet. I have also found out they have patents as well, and their team has recently grown bigger.

Here are some that I found

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021236067&_cid=P11-KX7B6H-94212-1

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021247013&_cid=P11-KX7BHC-98534-1

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021247013&_cid=P11-KYKISW-63621-2

, and the fact that they are listed with the SEC adds more credibility than a lot of other companies at the very least.

For now we can only wait for the prototype.

[SMB784]

So after doing some further research it seems that they are infact a legit company, just a bit overboard with the marketing, we must remember that there is a difference between claiming something, and aiming for something, it seems the project just has some pretty big aspirations, they have not stated that they have a working prototype, yet. I have also found out they have patents as well, and their team has recently grown bigger.

Here are some that I found

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021236067&_cid=P11-KX7B6H-94212-1

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021247013&_cid=P11-KX7BHC-98534-1

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021247013&_cid=P11-KYKISW-63621-2

, and the fact that they are listed with the SEC adds more credibility than a lot of other companies at the very least.

For now we can only wait for the prototype.

Enron was a legit company with big aspirations and listed with the SEC. Just because a company is an actual company doesn't mean they aren't engaging in fraudulent activity.

[EEVblog]

So after doing some further research it seems that they are infact a legit company, just a bit overboard with the marketing, we must remember that there is a difference between claiming something, and aiming for something, it seems the project just has some pretty big aspirations, they have not stated that they have a working prototype, yet. I have also found out they have patents as well, and their team has recently grown bigger.

Here are some that I found

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021236067&_cid=P11-KX7B6H-94212-1

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021247013&_cid=P11-KX7BHC-98534-1

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021247013&_cid=P11-KYKISW-63621-2

, and the fact that they are listed with the SEC adds more credibility than a lot of other companies at the very least.

For now we can only wait for the prototype.

First post from a user from India...