Neutrinovoltaics: energy from invisible forces

A new era of renewable energy generation

While MIT researchers suspect that high-energy neutrinos originate from the explosion of primordial black holes, teams around the Neutrino® Energy Group have made the step from theory to practice. Among other things, they “harvest” usable electrical energy from these invisible particles of the universe – permanently, emission-free and independent of sun, wind or weather – known as neutrinovoltaics.

What are neutrinos? Invisible messengers of the cosmos!

Neutrinos are tiny particles that are almost massless and electrically neutral. They arise wherever nuclear reactions take place – in the sun, in supernovae or in reactors on Earth.

• Light but powerful: Despite their low weight, neutrinos have kinetic energy – like a light wind blowing incessantly over everything.
• Unstoppable: Every second, around 60 billion neutrinos pass through every square centimetre of the Earth’s surface without ever colliding with our atoms.
• Reliable: More than 90 % of all neutrinos on Earth come from the sun. Their flux is constant – day and night, summer and winter.

These properties make them an almost inexhaustible source of energy – everywhere, at any time and completely emission-free.

The idea behind “neutrinovoltaics”

The Neutrino® Energy Group and its scientific advisory board had the courage to rethink physics. Instead of trying to capture individual neutrinos, they use – alongside other forms of radiation invisible to us – what neutrinos leave behind when passing through matter: tiny but measurable vibrations. These vibrations can be captured in nanomaterials and – put simply – converted into electric current. The principle is similar to an umbrella on which billions of raindrops fall – barely noticeable individually, but together with noticeable force. This creates a collective vibration effect that is amplified by specially developed materials.

The technology: when particles become electricity

The technical heart of neutrino energy is a wafer-thin layered structure of graphene and n-doped silicon. Arranged in 22 layers on top of each other, this material also reacts, among other things, to the tiny impulses of neutrinos – and converts them into electric current.

• Momentum absorption: As they pass through, neutrinos transfer their tiny kinetic energies to atomic nuclei.
• Vibration amplification: The 22-layer structure acts like a resonance amplifier and multiplies the vibrations.
• Power generation: Piezoelectric effects, the movement of electrons and several other factors create a measurable voltage – up to 1.5 volts per module.
• Scaling: By stacking many modules, entire systems can be built – from mobile phone chargers to power plants.

Applications: energy from the invisible

• [Electric cars without charging stations The so-called Pi Car system differs fundamentally from conventional electric vehicles. It uses not only the car’s outer surface but the entire body structure as a three-dimensional energy harvester. In the multilayer neutrinovoltaic modules, invisible particle streams and radiation – including neutrinos and cosmic energy flows, but also heat in the bodywork – are converted into electrical energy.

  The vehicle thus gains electricity continuously, both while driving and when stationary. When parked for several hours, it can – depending on external conditions – collect enough energy to cover its entire daily needs in urban use.

  At the same time, the Pi Catalyst is being developed, a retrofittable energy module that adds a self-sufficient charging source to existing electric vehicles. In future this will also allow conventional e-cars to extend their range noticeably – without a socket, “the small charging station for the boot”.](https://thepi.energy)

• Green shipping On cargo ships, embedded “Pi Nautic modules” generate electricity from, among other things, cosmic radiation and neutrinos. For example, a single 3,000-tonne ship could save up to 20 tonnes of diesel and around 60 tonnes of CO2 a year for its on-board energy supply.

• [Energy parks of the future Neutrino® Power Cubes are regarded as building blocks of a new form of energy supply. In compact, scalable form, they generate electrical energy up to the megawatt range. While conventional solar parks need entire football pitches of space to obtain corresponding amounts of energy, with neutrinovoltaic technology this area is, so to speak, folded up three-dimensionally – the active surface is highly compressed inside the individual Neutrino® Power Cubes. The energy of a large solar park is thus contained in hundreds of individual, handy cubes.

  Another decisive difference: classical energy parks are organised centrally, while the concept of neutrinovoltaics is based on decentralisation. Here the “energy park” is not created in one place, but through the networking of many individual units whose outputs add up to an invisible, weather-independent power plant network. Purely arithmetically, 200,000 cubes with an output of five kW each add up to 1,000 MW (1 GW), which corresponds to the output of a medium-sized nuclear power plant.](/en/neutrinovoltaics/)

Costs, cooperation and safety

Thanks to cooperation between German and Chinese partners, the cost of producing industrially usable graphene is falling drastically: graphene can now be produced 90 % more cheaply than at the start of research – and this figure could fall further. Fully automated production lines that increasingly raise efficiency and precision contribute to this. No fewer than 17 new industrial standards guarantee quality and traceability.

Safety: the modules only receive energy – they do not emit any radiation. According to accredited tests, their surroundings remain below natural background radiation.

A daring look into the future: “energy without limits”

• Cities: building façades supply themselves with electricity.
• Rural regions: billions of people without a power grid receive self-sufficient energy.
• Mobility: vehicles, ships and drones become energy producers.
• Space: neutrino energy enables a permanent energy supply on the Moon and Mars.

Neutrinovoltaics overcomes the geographical and climatic limits of energy supply.

Holger T. Schubart, CEO Neutrino® Energy Group

Conclusion

When the universe becomes the power grid

From the theory of black holes to real applications in cars and power plants – neutrinovoltaic technology shows how fundamental research can become tangible technology. Schubart and his team have proven: we no longer have to generate energy centrally – we can absorb it decentrally from the universe.