Lightbulb moment for americium

A team of scientists led by the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), working with Leicester University, extracted americium from some of the UK’s plutonium stockpile and used the heat generated from this highly radioactive material to generate enough electric current to light up a small lightbulb within a special shielded area in NNL’s Central Laboratory in Cumbria.

According to NNL, the breakthrough means potential use of americium in radioisotope power systems for missions which would use the heat from americium pellets to power spacecraft heading into deep space or to challenging environments on planet surfaces where other power sources, such as solar panels, no longer function.

Such space missions would be able to carry on sending images and data to Earth for far longer than would otherwise be possible.

The technical programme to deliver this world first has been running for several years, supported by funding from the government’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy department through the UK Space Agency and its ongoing participation in European Space Agency (ESA) programmes.