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Concrete accumulators

26.05.2021

Researchers in Sweden have come up with a way to store energy in cement. In this way, entire buildings can be turned into batteries.

Buildings are one of the largest consumers of energy in the world. They consume over a third of the world's energy and account for 40 percent of carbon emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. As the climate warms, this figure will only increase.

The new cement battery is an opportunity to make buildings self-sufficient from an energy point of view. Combined with solar energy, this technology could power skyscrapers and power infrastructure systems.

Emma Zhang and Lupin Tang from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have added carbon fibers to a cement-based mixture, which makes the material strong and conductive.

They then embedded electrodes into the material: the anode is made of an iron-coated carbon fiber mesh, and the cathode is made of a nickel-plated mesh.

The new invention currently has a lower energy density than conventional batteries. However, the sheer size of such batteries - in fact the entire house - compensates for this limitation. In addition, these batteries do not use either toxic or expensive materials.

Researchers believe that such batteries could be built not only into buildings, but also, for example, into bridges or highways, where monitoring systems would be supplied with electricity.

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