The Best Candidate for OU Prize

[onthecuttingedge2005]

The best candidate for a self contained OU solar device.

this unit if build should qualify for the OU prize, it would win.

it would require no direct ambient light for it to function but additional ambient light would make it more efficient, it will work night or day.

the Tritium can be doped with a variety of phosphor compounds to change the frequency(color) of the radioluminescence so that the system can be tuned to even higher efficiencies.

the beta-(electrons) emissions will also induce a capacitance charge onto the solar cell that can also be drawn off of at the leads.

a simple casing is enough to shield all radioactive emissions of Tritium, Helium is the only pollutant during the decay of Tritium over it's half life, the Helium waste is non radioactive.

using glow in the dark powders like these with Tritium will cause the powders to glow for decades continuously.
http://glonation.com/glow-powder.html

[MileHigh]

Cuttingedge:

You are proposing a variation on an atomic battery:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_battery

The terms atomic battery, nuclear battery, tritium battery and radioisotope generator are used to describe a device which uses the emissions from a radioactive isotope to generate electricity. Like nuclear reactors they generate electricity from atomic energy, but differ in that they do not use a chain reaction. Compared to other batteries they are very costly, but have extremely long life and high energy density, and so they are mainly used as power sources for equipment that must operate unattended for long periods of time, such as spacecraft and automated scientific stations in remote parts of the world.

Nuclear battery technology began in 1913, when Henry Moseley first demonstrated the Beta Cell. The field received considerable research attention for applications requiring long-life power sources for space needs during the 50s and 60s. Over the years many types and methods have been developed. The scientific principles are well known, but modern nano-scale technology and new wide bandgap semiconductors have created new devices and interesting material properties not previously available.

Batteries using the energy of radioisotope decay to provide long-lived power (10â€"20 years) are being developed internationally. Conversion techniques can be grouped into two types: thermal and non-thermal. The thermal converters (whose output power is a function of a temperature differential) include thermoelectric and thermionic generators. The non-thermal converters (whose output power is not a function of a temperature difference) extract a fraction of the incident energy as it is being degraded into heat rather than using thermal energy to run electrons in a cycle. Atomic batteries usually have an efficiency of 0.1â€"5%. High efficiency betavoltaics have 6â€"8%.

Some interesting stuff about Tritium:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

While tritium has several different experimentally-determined values of its half-life, NIST recommends 4,500±8 days (approximately 12.33 years).[1] It decays into helium-3 by the beta decay:

    31T     â†'     32He     +     eâˆ'     +     Î½e

and releases 18.6 keV of energy in the process. The electron's kinetic energy varies, with an average of 5.7 keV, while the remaining energy is carried off by the almost-undetectable electron antineutrino. Beta radiation has more inherent power than alpha, so it can penetrate more (alpha particles cannot penetrate paper, whereas beta particles can move through a few centimetres of wood). This means they can penetrate skin and tissue more deeply and cause damage further down, in less accessible areas, so tritium is dangerous if inhaled, ingested, if combined with oxygen in tritiated water molecules, absorbed through pores in the skin or if close and long-term exposure occours (radiation sources has been demonstrated to cause cancer in animals and humans). The low energy of tritium's radiation makes it difficult to detect tritium-labelled compounds except by using liquid scintillation

Radioactive decay is not really a source of free energy, it's atomic energy.  Tritium is nasty stuff, and very expensive to make.  I am sure that you have heard of "heavy water" manufacturing plants.

Also, the power output will drop by 1/2 after 12.3 years, Tritium's half-life.  There will be 1/2 as much Tritium available to produce power in your proposed device.

MileHigh

[onthecuttingedge2005]

Cuttingedge:

You are proposing a variation on an atomic battery:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_battery

yes, it is similar but uses more conversion techniques than an Atomic Battery. it is more efficient than an Atomic Battery. and refillable and renewable. the solar cells will not degrade from the low energy Beta- of Tritium.

1-H-3 (tritium)
Magnetic Moment: 2.9789 nm
Radioisotopic Power: 0.26 W/gm
H-3 is a pure beta emitter. This nuclide is useful for thickness gauge of thin plastics.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Atomic Mass: 3.0160493 ± 0.0000000 amu
Excess Mass: 14949.794 ± 0.001 keV
Binding Energy: 8481.821 ± 0.004 keV
Beta Decay Energy: B- 18.591 ± 0.001 keV

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spin: 1/2+
Half life: 12.33 Y ( 0.4866 % )
Mode of decay: Beta to He-3
Decay energy: 0.019 MeV

Possible parent nuclides:
Neutron emission from H-4

Some interesting stuff about Tritium:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

since I am a chemist I have better information than wiki on my bookshelf. thanks anyways.

Radioactive decay is not really a source of free energy, it's atomic energy.  Tritium is nasty stuff, and very expensive to make.  I am sure that you have heard of "heavy water" manufacturing plants.

Atomic Energy is free energy, Tritium will generate 20,000 times more energy than what it took to produce it over its entire life time. Tritium is a civilian available Isotope and requires no licences to purchase it or to own it. it is one of the safest of Isotopes because it requires very little shielding to shield its radioactive emissions. it is a very low energy emitter so it will not produce any X-Rays and or Gamma Rays. when we are talking about the Beta energy it is related to how fast the Electron is ejected, the Electron is low energy so that means it is ejected at low velocity. this is why there is no X-ray or Gamma rays emissions because it doesn't have enough energy to produce them on impact on an electron cross section.

Also, the power output will drop by 1/2 after 12.3 years, Tritium's half-life.  There will be 1/2 as much Tritium available to produce power in your proposed device.

I made this clear in my post didn't I?

thanks for your input, If nobody wants to take my professional word on this then I will have to build it myself and win the prize, If you want to win then follow my professional advice, build it. I know a great deal about Isotopes and chemistry, it will work as I said.

[Xaero_Vincent]

I thought about tritium solar panels too but the problem is solar panels are inefficient and while tritium vials may produce a bright glow but its FAR FAR FAR less luminescent than the sun and therefore less energy to be converted by the panel.

The sun shines about 1kW of solar energy per square meter. The brightest tritium technology I've found is called Litroenergy Its claimed to produce light comparable to a 20 watt incandescent light bulb.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1937720/posts

So while tritium-powered solar panels might generate minuscule amounts of power, its not practical. In addition, tritium is an extremely rare radioactive isotope of hydrogen and global production is tiny. An example of how small is how only about 550lbs of tritium have been produced in the USA since 1955. Large demand for tritium for solar applications would quickly deplete the world supply.

[onthecuttingedge2005]

it's all about tuning the efficiencies in all areas of the device, even if it is built unefficient it would still win the prize because it would require no additional input for a minimal of 12.3 years, the entire volume of the tritium will be unuseful in about 30 years over the units life. the system could be recharged before that to increase the energy density back to normal.

this would even work in miniature like the size of a small button battery.

I could develope this same unit using other Isotopes besides Tritium but I explained it this way for safe and general purposes.

I can also increase the light intensity by doping any of the following Isotopes into the phosphor, here is a list of the potential Beta emitters in PDF format.

the low energy beta- electrons are also captured by the solar cell as an ionized differential charge upon the face of the solar cell so in a sence it will also deliver more potential than what the photoreaction itself produces.

thanks for the link on Litroenergy.