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Cement-Based Batteries May Turn Buildings Into Massive Power Storage Facilities

May 19, 2021

By Chris Young

Read More: https://interestingengineering.com/c...age-facilities

Quote:

One of the areas where renewable energy has great potential is in repurposing entire urban spaces to hide components in plain sight. A novel example is outlined in a new study by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology (CUT), who presented a new cement-based battery that could form the building blocks of entire structures to store energy harvested by renewables. While researching how to reduce the carbon footprint of concrete, the team at CUT drew from previous work on concrete as a means for power storage such as the work done by the SoftBank-backed Energy Vault.

- The team devised a cement-based mixture with the addition of small amounts of short carbon fibers in order to increase the conductivity and flexural strength of the material. The researchers also incorporated a metal-coated carbon-fiber mesh, using iron for the anode, and nickel for the cathode of the battery. — The team claims that previous models of concrete batteries performed poorly and that their new mixture's improved performance makes it a world first. "Results from earlier studies investigating concrete battery technology showed very low performance, so we realized we had to think out of the box, to come up with another way to produce the electrode. This particular idea that we have developed – which is also rechargeable – has never been explored before. Now we have proof of concept at lab scale," Emma Zhang, study author, explained in a press statement. — The CUT team's concrete-based battery does, indeed, have a relatively strong performance. The researchers said that tests showed the battery has an energy density of 7 Wh per square meter of material (or 0.8 Watthours per liter) 10 times more than previous concrete battery solutions, the CUT scientists said.

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