They are created on the basis of a substance that does not exist in nature.
The Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum is not a trivial event. On it, projects, sometimes of a cosmic scale, are voiced. And most importantly - doable, in the not so distant future. At the KEF-2016, which started today, the employees of the "Cluster of innovative technologies of ZATO Zheleznogorsk" told how the work on the creation of the "miracle battery" is going on (may the experts forgive us for the colloquial name).
It began several years ago, but the first results will be presented by the end of this year.
The power source of the future is based on the nickel isotope nickel-63, which has a huge energy capacity. At the same time, a super-powerful "battery" can be very small.
For example, it is planned to use it for implantable pacemakers. This power source can be enough for a patient for almost a lifetime!
“Now it is very important for Russia to be ahead in science-intensive technologies, and one of them is the production of the so-called“atomic battery”with a service life of 50 years,” Pyotr Gavrilov, General Director of the Mining and Chemical Combine, told Komsomolskaya Pravda even earlier. - It is lightweight, safe and very necessary, for example, for pacemakers, which now operate on plutonium batteries for only 5-7 years. Imagine this, a person already has a sick heart, and he needs to do an operation to replace the source again in 5-7 years. If there will be 50 - it is almost for life!
The complexity of its production is that nickel-63 element, which does not exist in nature, is needed. It is produced from nickel-62, which is only 3.6% in the natural mixture of isotopes. That is, it is necessary to enrich nickel in the 62nd isotope, which is then converted into a new element - nickel-63. Today, we are the only ones in the world who have a full range of technologies to organize this multi-stage process. And this is our competitive advantage. By the end of 2016, we will have produced a sufficient amount of nickel-63 and by mid-2017 we plan to receive the first battery based on this unique element.
Cardiac surgeons are very interested in a new power source for pacemakers, and if we are already talking about medicine, we can isolate a number of isotopes that are in demand in oncology in our production (for the treatment of each organ, its own isotope is needed). In nuclear medicine, our country is lagging behind, if in the whole world its share is already approaching a third, we have only 5-7% of medical technologies associated with isotopes.
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Maria MISHKINA