Carbon black and cement could be used to store energy in homes and roads

[Alfonso Maruccia]

In brief: Cement and carbon black are two of the most ubiquitous materials used throughout human history. Now, scientists say they could also pave the way for the future of energy consumption.

MIT researchers have found a way to create an innovative, energy-storing material by mixing cement, water, and carbon black. The design is scalable and could be used to transform roads or buildings into renewable energy sources. The secret behind the new design, the scientists said, lies in the method of mixing the base materials to produce a supercapacitor.

Researchers have already attempted to impart battery-like properties to structural materials by mixing concrete with graphene-based carbon nanotubes. However, nanotubes are expensive to produce and not easily scalable for real-world applications. Carbon black, on the other hand, is a material produced from the incomplete combustion of coal, vegetable matter, or fuel, and it offers a more cost-effective alternative to nanotubes due to its abundant availability.

The team discovered that when mixed with water and cement, carbon black forms a "fractal-like," electron-conducting network. They then shaped the final product into small plates measuring 1mm thick by 10mm wide and encased them in a potassium chloride membrane, a standard electrolyte material, to create a sandwich-like structure.

Two electrodes made of this material are separated by an insulating layer, the scientists said, allowing them to form a very powerful supercapacitor. When supplied power, the plates can light up a series of LED lights. The team believes that the new material could be integrated into roads or buildings to store a day's worth of energy.

Even if the base mixture works as a supercapacitor, retaining both its energy-storing capability and structural strength can still be a challenge. Adding more carbon black increases the amount of stored energy, but the concrete becomes weaker. The researchers found that the sweet spot for foundations or other structural elements is using around 10 percent of carbon black in the mix.

When structural strength isn't an issue, the amount of carbon black could be increased to create even more powerful supercapacitors. Civil engineer Franz-Josef Ulm and his colleagues at MIT are now working to develop a 12V battery equivalent for automotive applications. The prototype could be available in approximately 18 months, and it could also serve as an elemental brick for energy storage in homes.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/99654-carbon-black-cement-could-used-store-energy-homes.html

 

[Uncle Al]

You know, we keep hearing all these wonderful discoveries, but so few of them ever see the light of day ......

 

[wiyosaya]

You know, we keep hearing all these wonderful discoveries, but so few of them ever see the light of day ......

Some day, whenever that is, one of the laboratory Frankensteins will live and make it out of the laboratory. Unless, of course, they take the attitude "none of these ever make it out of the laboratory and see the light of day, so why bother?"

 

[return]

Coal works fine.

 

[yRaz]

So this is a bad idea for a number of industries. Maybe construction in new homes, but any structure that needs rebar or needs to be electrically grounded, this cannot work in. The other thing is that concrete cracks. It's not if, it's that it does. This is a result of concrete "drying" and it physically shrinks because it's a chemical reaction, not drying. There are ways to reduce cracking but not eliminate it. This is an issue for water ingress.

There are coatings and sealing agents but they're only really rated for 10 years. In a commercial setting they're only insured for 10 years in the contract, I don't care what the bucket at Home Depot says.

Another issue is that concrete "sets" (not dries) over a period of about 50 years. 90% happens within the 72 hours, 99% happens over about 3 months with the last 1% happening over the next 49 years.

I love concrete as a material, I travel all over the US engineering concrete for certain applications as small as a sidewalk and as big as a sky scraper. You do not want to make a battery out of concrete, especially with technology like sodium ion batteries. Lithium is great for cars and phones, but for applications like a battery in your home or grid energy storage, sodium ion batteries are far superior to anything you could put into concrete.

Concrete is an awesome material and I could nerd out about it all. From glass and carbon additives, retarders, plastisizers and accelerents to different types of reinforment. As someone who engineers concrete and actively worries about how to electrically ground buildings safely, this is the worst idea I have ever heard

Coal works fine.

I guess that's why China, India and even West Virgina are getting rid of it?

 

[kiwigraeme]

So this is a bad idea for a number of industries. Maybe construction in new homes, but any structure that needs rebar or needs to be electrically grounded, this cannot work in. The other thing is that concrete cracks. It's not if, it's that it does. This is a result of concrete "drying" and it physically shrinks because it's a chemical reaction, not drying. There are ways to reduce cracking but not eliminate it. This is an issue for water ingress.

There are coatings and sealing agents but they're only really rated for 10 years. In a commercial setting they're only insured for 10 years in the contract, I don't care what the bucket at Home Depot says.

Another issue is that concrete "sets" (not dries) over a period of about 50 years. 90% happens within the 72 hours, 99% happens over about 3 months with the last 1% happening over the next 49 years.

I love concrete as a material, I travel all over the US engineering concrete for certain applications as small as a sidewalk and as big as a sky scraper. You do not want to make a battery out of concrete, especially with technology like sodium ion batteries. Lithium is great for cars and phones, but for applications like a battery in your home or grid energy storage, sodium ion batteries are far superior to anything you could put into concrete.

Concrete is an awesome material and I could nerd out about it all. From glass and carbon additives, retarders, plastisizers and accelerents to different types of reinforment. As someone who engineers concrete and actively worries about how to electrically ground buildings safely, this is the worst idea I have ever heard



I guess that's why China, India and even West Virgina are getting rid of it?

Concrete is an amazing invention - and I suppose like the Damascan Steel of yore - the recipes, purity of inputs are critical
But off the top of my head - I can name 3 big problems
1- too much of earth is covered by concrete or roads ) heat Islands - lost of habitats - restriction animal movement etc
2- Concrete has a huge - no massive carbon footprint
3- The harvesting of sand for the likes of Singapore , Dubai , China etc is affecting the environment
( note sand of beaches not good as salt etc )

Will get interesting as cities adapt to build in cooling features .
Go from a leafy rich superb , with lots of parks , playgrounds to poor neighbourhoods - it can be grim - no maple drive, or elm street

There is a lot of effort to reduce concretes carbon footprint - with new recipes and techniques - the aim is to sequester carbon in a concrete derivative

 

[yRaz]

Concrete is an amazing invention - and I suppose like the Damascan Steel of yore - the recipes, purity of inputs are critical
But off the top of my head - I can name 3 big problems
1- too much of earth is covered by concrete or roads ) heat Islands - lost of habitats - restriction animal movement etc
2- Concrete has a huge - no massive carbon footprint
3- The harvesting of sand for the likes of Singapore , Dubai , China etc is affecting the environment
( note sand of beaches not good as salt etc )

Will get interesting as cities adapt to build in cooling features .
Go from a leafy rich superb , with lots of parks , playgrounds to poor neighbourhoods - it can be grim - no maple drive, or elm street

There is a lot of effort to reduce concretes carbon footprint - with new recipes and techniques - the aim is to sequester carbon in a concrete derivative

There are so many interesting innoventions going on with concrete that it's a really exciting time to be involved with it. There is a huge push to reduce sand use and the amount of Portland cement used in the mix, this is Refered to as L1 concrete but getting the additive recipe right so that it acts like normal concrete is very difficult. The cool thing about it is that the same additive used to reduce carbon emissions doubles to eliminate sand use. Concrete is also 100% recyclable. Because of this, it is cheaper to use recycled concrete in a mix than regular aggregate.

There are some engineering limitations in where using recycled concrete is not possible but it's a surprisingly small part of the total concrete used.

There is the issue of heat islands, but this can be reduced by using carbon fiber in concrete. Carbon is actually a really good conductor of heat so carbon fiber is used in a lot of geothermal construction. Another cool thing about carbon fiber concrete is that it is SIGNIFICANTLY LIGHTER than regular concrete while also being stronger so it reduces the amount of material needed and the overall foot print of the project.

It's a really exciting time to be a concrete engineer. I've even worked on a few projects where we've used concrete to make toxic waste inert while also reducing the carbon emissions from the project and reducing costs.

I can(and will) talk your ear off all day about concrete.

 

[kiwigraeme]

There are so many interesting innoventions going on with concrete that it's a really exciting time to be involved with it. There is a huge push to reduce sand use and the amount of Portland cement used in the mix, this is Refered to as L1 concrete but getting the additive recipe right so that it acts like normal concrete is very difficult. The cool thing about it is that the same additive used to reduce carbon emissions doubles to eliminate sand use. Concrete is also 100% recyclable. Because of this, it is cheaper to use recycled concrete in a mix than regular aggregate.

There are some engineering limitations in where using recycled concrete is not possible but it's a surprisingly small part of the total concrete used.

There is the issue of heat islands, but this can be reduced by using carbon fiber in concrete. Carbon is actually a really good conductor of heat so carbon fiber is used in a lot of geothermal construction. Another cool thing about carbon fiber concrete is that it is SIGNIFICANTLY LIGHTER than regular concrete while also being stronger so it reduces the amount of material needed and the overall foot print of the project.

It's a really exciting time to be a concrete engineer. I've even worked on a few projects where we've used concrete to make toxic waste inert while also reducing the carbon emissions from the project and reducing costs.

I can(and will) talk your ear off all day about concrete.

Cheers for that info - another fun fact - if you want to be an AH and walk through some newly poured concrete - just be careful - apparently it burns - never tried it so don't know

 

[yRaz]

Cheers for that info - another fun fact - if you want to be an AH and walk through some newly poured concrete - just be careful - apparently it burns - never tried it so don't know

Concrete burns are a real thing, I've had them and they are no fun. Concrete is a very strong base.

 

[QuaZulu]

Coal works fine.

Hey, it seems there's room for both - something's gotta get burned to make all of the carbon black we'll be using to make clean energy!

 

[QuaZulu]

Cheers for that info - another fun fact - if you want to be an AH and walk through some newly poured concrete - just be careful - apparently it burns - never tried it so don't know.
[/QUOTE]
Psh, kiwi, your comment is so "yesterday!" In tomorrow's concrete you can get burned AND electrified. At the same time.

 

[captaincranky]

Carbon (asphalt), and cement, (concrete), already do store energy in the form of heat, in cities, anyway. It's called "the heat island effect", and it's why everybody wants to run off to the shore or the mountains on weekends.

 

[captaincranky]

Concrete burns are a real thing, I've had them and they are no fun. Concrete is a very strong base.

There's a lot of lime in concrete, and I think even more in mortar mix. In the case of mortar, it's there to etch the surface and make it stick. I think after concrete sets up, you sort of have a "proto limestone" (with rocks in it..

Lime (material) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(That should be a good read. I'd read it myself, except I have to clean out the cat litter, which leans toward the acid and ammonia spectrum).

 

[yRaz]

There's a lot of lime in concrete, and I think even more in mortar mix. In the case of mortar, it's there to etch the surface and make it stick. I think after concrete sets up, you sort of have a "proto limestone" (with rocks in it..

Lime (material) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(That should be a good read. I'd read it myself, except I have to clean out the cat litter, which leans toward the acid and ammonia spectrum).

Mortar used to be almost entirely based around limestone. The interesting thing about limestone is that it doesn't crystallize like and harden like concrete. Part of it sets but it dries more than it reacts. This is a large reason why old stone buildings are still standing, the limestone allows the stone to move overtime rather than Crack. If you look at old stone buildings in Europe you'll notice many of the stones are out of square. This isn't because they were bad masons but rather the masonry has been able to move slowly overtime. The cool thing about lime mortar is that it can move overtime without having an impact on the structural integrity of the building. As the land moves over hundreds of years the lime mortar acts as kind of a very viscous fluid.

There are varying types of lime stone in mortars. A big part of that is that ratio of limestone changes due to the temperature you're working in. If you want to build something when it's 10 degrees freedom out you need to use a higher ratio of limestone than if it's 90 freedoms outside. The thing is, you have to use that mix throughout the whole construction of the building. what that means is you have to take the length of the project into consideration when choosing a mortar. It could be 90 freedoms when you start but it could go into the winter so you have to engineer the whole project as if it's negative freedoms out

 

[yRaz]

Carbon (asphalt), and cement, (concrete), already do store energy in the form of heat, in cities, anyway. It's called "the heat island effect", and it's why everybody wants to run off to the shore or the mountains on weekends.

posting this the day after as I just saw this or else I would have put this in my last post. The heat island effect actually has very little to do with concrete or asphalt. The issue is that things like photosynthesis in plants actively take heat out of the air with the plants actively providing said. It's not the asphalt or the concrete that is making things hotter, it's the fact that we are modifying the environment and removing things naturally cool the environment

 

[captaincranky]

posting this the day after as I just saw this or else I would have put this in my last post. The heat island effect actually has very little to do with concrete or asphalt. The issue is that things like photosynthesis in plants actively take heat out of the air with the plants actively providing said. It's not the asphalt or the concrete that is making things hotter, it's the fact that we are modifying the environment and removing things naturally cool the environment

Most exalted Prince, believe me, I take no pleasure or pride when I tell you how sadly misinformed and lacking in technical knowledge you are. A lesser man, (sorry "demigod"), I would simply tell that he or she, has no idea what they're talking about. A run of the mill street urchin would get something like, "you're full of sh!t", and I'd be done with it..But, I'll help you any way that I can to add to the vast sum of knowledge, which you so obviously already possess.

Plants will only serve to mitigate the, "heat island effect", but, "photosynthesis" has little or nothing to do with it. Photosynthesis is a process that separates CO2 into its component elements, carbon to feed the plant, and the oxygen is released back into the air.

Here's a fun fact, photosynthesis ceases somewhere around 86 degrees F., or without light, as in overnight, when plants "breath", the same way we do, air in, CO2 out.

Any cooling effect plants achieve, is by virtue of water transpiration through the leaves. This is known as "evaporative cooling". Given normal room conditions, (70 F, 30 to 40% RH), a pan of water left sitting out, will have an actual surface temperature of about 6 degrees below ambient.
I know this because I have studied photography, and have done a fair amount of B & W darkroom work. If you want 68 F in the liquids, the room needs to be about 74 F.

In dry air, evaporative cooling can reduce ambient temperatures up to about 15 F. When the RH of the surrounding air goes up, evaporative cooling becomes less and less effective.

On, "life in the big city": We perceive color, (or lack thereof), dependent on which part of the solar spectrum any object absorbs or reflects. In technical terms, this is called, "LRV", (light reflective value). The darker an object is, the less visible light is reflected, but the more infrared wave lengths it absorbs. .As I'm sure you're aware, infrared is the heating component of the sun's energy. Thus asphalt, being close to black, absorbs infrared in copious quantity.

The second component of heat retention is mass, and structure. If we consider equal.mass, but fail to account for dramatically different structure, we'd be able to strap a one pound aluminum brick to the top of our CPUs, and it would have the same cooling capacity as the heavily finned coolers we now use.

So, until we build with "finned bricks", we can be assured that a standard brick, will retain approximately all of the heat it receives in the infrared spectrum, based on its LRV. (Red bricks will retain more heat than gray ones, and so forth, yadda, yadda, yadda).

While plants do provide shade, if they're not watered, they'll burn to a crisp, Thereby effectively eliminating their evaporative (self) cooling capability..

Now, an acre of skyscrapers, contains many multiples of mass compared to say, an acre of maple trees, without any ability to cool themselves by water evaporation means. So yes, the "heat island effect" is very real. And, to say that if we eliminated buildings and planted trees that it would resolve the issue, is at once impractical, and a statement of the patently obvious. Like "back to nature, dudes". (Please forgive my crude hyperboly, in that last paragraph).

EPILOGUE: Some forty odd years ago, during yet another of our all too frequent energy crisis, passive solar heating was kicked around in housing design. This consisted of a pretty much standard house, with an attached greenhouse, which ostensibly would face south, at least in the northern hemisphere.

Huge, two story plexiglass columns filled with water, would occupy the greenhouse. The water would absorb a massive amount of heat during the day, and then release it during the night, eliminating, or at least reducing, the need to burn fossil fuels. During the summer months, deciduous trees in the greenhouse's path, would block much of the light the structure received during the summer. IDK, how many of these houses were ever built, or if the concept even, "got off the ground", so to speak

.I now beseech your magnificence to allow me to turn out my Lava Lamps, extinguish my LED "flame lights", and retire to the primal, but imagined, security of my hovel's raggedy bed chamber.

As always, much honor and respect to your excellence, your forever humble and obedient servant....., Cranky. .

 

[Andy51]

I'm not an expert on concrete, but didn't the Romans develop concrete that is self repairing every time it becomes wet, small cracks that can appear over time become fused back to the surrounding concrete and that's what makes it so strong and it lasts for centuries...even today where things made are still standing, some in almost perfect condition.

 

[Endymio]

I guess that's why China, India and even West Virgina are getting rid of [coal]?

Oops! China approved construction on two new coal-fired power plants every week in the year 2022. And that's just domestically-- they're financing and helping construct even more overseas. And you'll find few West Viriginians who claim the state is "getting rid" of coal -- it still produces more than 80% of its electricity from coal, and even Joe Manchin (D-WV) says the coal industry is here for the future.