This Cement-Based Battery Could Let Buildings Store Energy

For decades, we have been exploring different ways of generating and storing energy. Lithium-ion is a popular choice these days, especially for portable electronics like phones, tablets, and laptops, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best. Plus, with a lot of emphasis placed on creating sustainable forms of energy, researchers are now looking for new methods.

In fact, one of those methods could come in the form of cement-based battery technology. This is actually something that researchers at the Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden have come up with. Since cement is used in the construction of buildings, the goal of the researchers is that hopefully one day, buildings could be made using its technology, which in turn could allow the building to store energy and power itself.

This is achieved by mixing the cement-based mixture with short carbon fibers that help improve conductivity and flexural toughness. A metal-coated carbon-fiber mesh is then incorporated into the mixture that helps carry electrons back and forth. However, the energy density is pretty low when compared to commercially available batteries, but the researchers believe that if used in large volumes, such as when constructing a building, those limitations can be overcome.

According to Emma Zhang, one of the researchers working on the project, “We have a vision that in the future, this technology could allow for whole sections of multi-story buildings made of functional concrete. Considering that any concrete surface could have a layer of this electrode embedded, we are talking about enormous volumes of functional concrete.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: General, Green
Tags: Science