MIT engineers have created a “supercapacitor” made of ancient, abundant materials, that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black , the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy. Credit: Image courtesy of Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn
professors Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn, and four others at MIT and at the Wyss Institute. Since the new “supercapacitor” concrete would retain its strength, a house with a foundation made of this material could store a day’s worth of energy produced by solar panels or windmills, and allow it to be used whenever it’s needed. Credit: Image courtesy of Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn
Supercapacitors made of this material have great potential to aid in the world’s transition to renewable energy, Ulm says. The principal sources of emissions-free energy, wind, solar, and tidal power, all produce their output at variable times that often do not correspond to the peaks in electricity usage, so ways of storing that power are essential.
Another potential application for carbon-cement supercapacitors is for building concrete roadways that could store energy produced by solar panels alongside the road and then deliver that energy to electric vehicles traveling along the road using the same kind of technology used for wirelessly rechargeable phones. A related type of car-recharging system is already being developed by companies in Germany and the Netherlands, but using standard batteries for storage.
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