I know how industrial diamond and DLC are made and the rates that are
reasonable.  I don't know where the 4mW/g electrical came from for 14C
(perhaps that is the energy output of the 14C), but I believe you would be
doing well to achieve about 40 microwatts per gram.  Keep in mind that a
gram of diamond is 5 carats of diamond.  It is not practical to produce
diamond from 14C from high temperature - high pressure methods because of
the leaked non-diamond 14C and because the result would not be
encapsulated.  If this were being produced in gas phase (RF plasma), you
would contaminate the whole vacuum system with C14, and you would have to
capture everything when you pumped the chamber down (could not be vented to
atmosphere).  Vacuum pump would be contaminated, the vacuum oil would be
contaminated.

Zinc-air hearing aid batteries produce more than 1mW and the newer digital
hearing aids need more than 10mW peaks.  Zinc-air hearing aid batteries are
cheap, so this is a non-application.  Pacemaker is an appropriate
application, but the problem is not enough power from the 14C beta
battery.  Spacecraft clock core is a good application, but would not be
worth the development for such a small market.

One also has to consider that 14C is a tremendously bio-active element and
you are talking about curies/battery (not microCi).  This is basically a
non-starter.

Bob Higgins

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 8:36 AM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:

> <mix...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> The maximum power output of such a battery would be about 4 mW / gm of C14.
>> (That's milli-watt, not Megawatt, which means you would be looking at a
>> very low
>> acceleration rate.
>>
>
> A hearing aid battery produces less than 1 mW. A pacemaker produces about
> 10 mW. So ~4 mW power levels would be useful. You could use 3 g of diamonds
> in a pacemaker.
>
> - Jed
>
>

Reply via email to