What do you know about rechargeable cement batteries? Future buildings or avatars of "power plants" can store energy and generate electricity in one step.

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Imagine a 20-story concrete building that can store energy like a giant battery. Such a vision could one day come true, according to a study by Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Researchers in the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering recently published an article outlining the new concept of rechargeable batteries-made of cement.

The growing demand for sustainable building materials brings great challenges to researchers. Dr. Emma Zhang, who once worked at (Chalmers University of Technology) at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, joined Professor Luping Tang's research team a few years ago to look for future building materials. Now together they have successfully developed the concept of the world's first rechargeable cement battery.

This concept first involves cement-based mixtures, adding a small amount of short carbon fibers to increase electrical conductivity and bending toughness. Then, a metal-coated carbon fiber net is embedded in the mixture-iron as the anode and nickel as the cathode. After many experiments, this is the prototype that the researchers are now showing.

"early studies showed that the performance of concrete battery technology was very low, so we realized that we had to break the rules and come up with another way to produce electrodes. This particular idea we developed is also rechargeable and has never been explored before. Now we have a proof of concept of laboratory size, "Emma Zhang explained.

It is reported that they have produced a rechargeable cement battery with an average energy density of 7 watt-hours per square meter (or 0.8 watt-hours per liter). The energy density is used to indicate the capacity of the battery, and a modest estimate is that the performance of the new battery may be more than 10 times that of the previously tried concrete battery.

Compared with commercial batteries, the energy density of this kind of battery is still very low, but this limitation can be overcome because of the large size of the battery when used in buildings.

The potential key to solving the problem of energy storage

Battery rechargeability is its most important quality, and if this concept is further developed and commercialized, the possibility of its use is almost amazing. Energy storage is an obvious possibility, monitoring is another possibility. The researchers believe that the application of the technology may include supplying power to Led, providing 4G connections in remote areas, or providing cathodic protection in concrete infrastructure to prevent corrosion.

"for example, it can also be combined with solar panels to power monitoring systems on highways or bridges, and sensors operated by concrete batteries can detect cracks or corrosion," Emma Zhang said.

The concept of using structures and buildings in this way may be revolutionary because it provides an alternative solution to the energy crisis-by providing large amounts of energy storage.

Concrete is a mixture of cement and other ingredients and is the most commonly used building material in the world. From the perspective of sustainable development, it is far from ideal, but the potential to increase functionality can provide a new dimension.

"We have a vision that in the future, this technology will allow entire parts of multi-storey buildings to be made of functional concrete," Emma Zhang said. Considering that any concrete surface can be embedded with one of these electrodes, we are talking about large functional concrete. "

Challenges remain in terms of service life

The idea is still at a very early stage. Prolonging the service life of the battery and developing the recycling technology are the technical problems to be solved before the commercialization of the technology.

"because concrete infrastructure usually lasts for 50 or even 100 years, batteries need to be improved to match this standard, or are easier to replace and recycle at the end of their useful life," the researchers said. At present, from a technical point of view, this is a major challenge. "

But the researchers hope that their innovation will provide a lot of things. "We believe that this concept will make a great contribution to providing more functions for future building materials, such as renewable energy," they added.