A mix of cheap, abundant materials could hold electricity from wind or solar in foundations or roads. Contact online >>
A mix of cheap, abundant materials could hold electricity from wind or solar in foundations or roads.
A supercapacitor made from cement and carbon black (a conductive material resembling fine charcoal) could form the basis for a low-cost way to store energy from renewable sources, according to MIT researchers.
The amount of power a capacitor can store depends on the total surface area of its conductive plates. Professors Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang Shao-Horn and colleagues found that if carbon black is introduced into a mixture with cement powder and water, the water naturally forms a branching network of openings when the resulting concrete cures—and the carbon migrates into that network to make wire-like structures, yielding a conductive material with an extremely large internal surface area.
Two electrodes made by soaking this material in a standard electrolyte, separated by a thin space or an insulating layer, form a very powerful supercapacitor, the researchers found. A cube about 3.5 meters across could store about 10 kilowatt-hours.
The simple technology could eventually be incorporated into the concrete foundation of a house, where it could store a day''s worth of energy. The researchers also envision a roadway that could provide contactless recharging for electric cars as they travel.
It''s "a new way of looking toward the future of concrete as part of the energy transition," Ulm says.
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Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a low-cost energy storage system that could be integrated into roads and building foundations to facilitate the renewable energy transition.
The research team has created a supercapacitor – a device that works like a rechargeable battery – using cement, water and carbon black, a fine black powder primarily formed of pure carbon.
The breakthrough could pave the way for energy storage to be embedded into concrete, creating the potential for roads and buildings that charge electric devices.
Unlike batteries, which rely on materials in limited supply such as lithium, the technology could be produced cheaply using materials that are readily available, according to the researchers.
They describe cement and carbon black as "two of humanity''s most ubiquitous materials".
The research team included Masic and fellow MIT professors Franz-Josef Ulm and Yang-Shao Horn, with postdoctoral researchers Nicolas Chanut, Damian Stefaniuk and Yunguang Zhu at MIT and James Weaver at Harvard''s Wyss Institute.
"Huge need for big energy storage"
They believe the technology could accelerate a global shift to renewable energy.
Solar, wind and tidal power are all produced at variable times, which often don''t correspond with peak electricity demand. Large-scale energy storage is necessary to take advantage of these sources but is too expensive to realise using traditional batteries.
"There is a huge need for big energy storage," said Ulm. "That''s where our technology is extremely promising because cement is ubiquitous."
The team proved the concept works by creating a set of button-sized supercapacitors, equivalent to one-volt batteries, which were used to power an LED light.
They are now developing a 45-cubic-metre version to show the technology can be scaled up.
Calculations suggesta supercapacitor of this size could store around 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which would be enough to meet the daily electricity usage of a typical household.
This means that a supercapacitor could potentially be incorporated into the concrete foundation of a house for little to no additional cost.
"You can go from one-millimetre-thick electrodes to one-metre-thick electrodes, and by doing so basically you can scale the energy storage capacity from lighting an LED for a few seconds to powering a whole house," Ulm said.
The researchers suggest that embedding the technology into a concrete road could make it possible to charge electric cars while they are travelling across it, using similar technology to that used in wireless phone chargers.
Battery-powered versions of this system are already being trialled across Europe.
Carbon black key to "fascinating" composite
Supercapacitors work by storing electrical energy between two electrically conductive plates. They are able to deliver charge much more rapidly than batteries but most do not offer as much energy storage.
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