Buildings and roads built with a new type of concrete could soon serve as giant batteries capable of powering homes and electric vehicles.
Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who first discovered the next-generation energy storage system in 2023, have now figured out how to make them 10 times more powerful.
The breakthrough means that the average home requires about 5 cubic metres of the material – roughly the volume of a typical basement wall – in order to meet its energy needs.
The concrete battery works by combining cement, water, carbon black and electrolytes, which combine together to create a conductive “nanonetwork” inside the material to store and release electrical energy.
“A key to the sustainability of concrete is the development of ‘multifunctional concrete,’ which integrates functionalities like this energy storage, self-healing, and carbon sequestration,” said Admir Masic, co-director, and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT.
“Concrete is already the world’s most-used construction material, so why not take advantage of that scale to create other benefits.”
Professor Masic and his team were able to improve the energy density by reconstructing the conductive nanonetwork. By experimenting with different electrolytes, including seawater, they were then able to find the optimal method to store energy.
The technology holds the potential to massively scale-up renewable energy operation, with buildings equipped with solar panels capable of operating fully off the grid.
“The Ancient Romans made great advances in concrete construction. Massive structures like the Pantheon stand to this day without reinforcement,” said Professor Masic.
“If we keep up their spirit of combining material science with architectural vision, we could be at the brink of a new architectural revolution with multifunctional concretes like ec3.”
The research team is now working toward applications like roads and parking spaces that could charge electric vehicles, as well as off-grid homes.
The research was published in the scientific journal PNAS in a study titled ‘High energy density carbon–cement supercapacitors for architectural energy storage’.
“What excites us most is that we’ve taken a material as ancient as concrete and shown that it can do something entirely new,” said James Weaver, a co-author on the paper.
“By combining modern nanoscience with an ancient building block of civilization, we’re opening a door to infrastructure that doesn’t just support our lives, it powers them.”
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