The typical radioisotope generator is a Plutonium-238 source like the MMRTG on the Mars rovers. The Plutonium decays by alpha emission with a half life of 80+ years. The problem is there is a very limited supply of Plutonium-238 - we use the entire supply for Mars Rover - and it's very controlled material.
The CAB starts with a non-radioactive material like Cobalt-59 spheres placed in a ceramic matrix. It is then put into a nuclear reactor where it turns into Cobalt-60, which releases energy by beta and gamma emission with a half life of 5 years. This charging can be done every couple years to generate more Cobalt-60 inside the device. Such a power source is something like 40x as power dense as the Pu-238 source and since it's made of high temperature ceramics, it can go to very high temperatures which is very useful for space generators where you have to reject heat using blackbody radiators.
Thanks, so "charging" means activating stable cobalt to radioactive cobalt by neutron capture. This sounds very doable and is in line with what I expected for a project selected for the program.
I asked because of an experiment conducted by a german research institute at an accelerator in France. They modified nuclear states by using "shaped" x-ray pulses. I wondered if it were possible to store energy by making a nucleus undergo a transition to a meta-stable state (spontaneous emission is forbidden by a selection rule) but which could eventually be triggered by another pulse to extract energy again.
I hope my description of the process I imagine is not too far off, it has been a while since my nuclear physics course ;)
if it's what i think they are, they are essentially batteries with a radioactive source. It relies on the gradual decay of the source to create energy which is somehow harnessed and used as a power source. I have learnt here on HN that they last many years, are used on space projects such as the voyager probes, and more recently, the mars rover. They are impractical for other uses, such as powering your fridge and home. And their price is.... astronomical.
One thing that comes to mind is Hafnium 178m2, but (for understandable reasons) there's basically zero public information about the feasibility of charging and induced discharging of any nuclear isomer, let alone one so energy dense.
The CAB starts with a non-radioactive material like Cobalt-59 spheres placed in a ceramic matrix. It is then put into a nuclear reactor where it turns into Cobalt-60, which releases energy by beta and gamma emission with a half life of 5 years. This charging can be done every couple years to generate more Cobalt-60 inside the device. Such a power source is something like 40x as power dense as the Pu-238 source and since it's made of high temperature ceramics, it can go to very high temperatures which is very useful for space generators where you have to reject heat using blackbody radiators.