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- Oct 18, 2013
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So I came up with an idea, but I'm not entirely sure it would actually work, and I can't seem to find much information about it on Google.
Basically I've seen a couple videos pop up over the last year where people make crude (but functional) "batteries" by sandwiching a bunch of those self-illuminating tritium tubes between two small solar cells. Granted were talking fractions of a volt at microamps of current, but this video got me thinking about interesting niche uses for these devices, and I want to construct one of my own. The only problem is, those little tritium tubes are somewhat expensive.
So my idea to improve cost (and possibly performance) would be to make some DIY radioluminescent paint, except instead of using dangerous and hard to obtain radium, using easy to obtain uranium ore.
Now I know natural uranium on its own is purely an alpha emitter, but many of its decay products are beta emitters in a similar KeV range to the tritium used in the tubes. So what I'm wondering is, could I crush up the uranium ore rocks into a fine powder, and mix it into some phosphor paint to make my own crude self-illuminating paint, and then paint it on to some solar cells to make a basic nuclear battery?
The only thing I can think of why this wouldn't work is that the uranium ore is a lot less energetic than radium or tritium, but even weak luminescence might work. But there could be other factors I'm simply unaware of (this is just a hobby for me after all) so I'm hoping someone here might know more about the subject.
Thanks!
Basically I've seen a couple videos pop up over the last year where people make crude (but functional) "batteries" by sandwiching a bunch of those self-illuminating tritium tubes between two small solar cells. Granted were talking fractions of a volt at microamps of current, but this video got me thinking about interesting niche uses for these devices, and I want to construct one of my own. The only problem is, those little tritium tubes are somewhat expensive.
So my idea to improve cost (and possibly performance) would be to make some DIY radioluminescent paint, except instead of using dangerous and hard to obtain radium, using easy to obtain uranium ore.
Now I know natural uranium on its own is purely an alpha emitter, but many of its decay products are beta emitters in a similar KeV range to the tritium used in the tubes. So what I'm wondering is, could I crush up the uranium ore rocks into a fine powder, and mix it into some phosphor paint to make my own crude self-illuminating paint, and then paint it on to some solar cells to make a basic nuclear battery?
The only thing I can think of why this wouldn't work is that the uranium ore is a lot less energetic than radium or tritium, but even weak luminescence might work. But there could be other factors I'm simply unaware of (this is just a hobby for me after all) so I'm hoping someone here might know more about the subject.
Thanks!
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