Cement based supercapacitor storage system
Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2026 3:58 pm
This is a 2026 mention, does it sound like it could work?
https://www.futura-sciences.com/en/they ... ent_24569/
Researchers at MIT have developed cement based supercapacitors capable of storing renewable energy. This technology could turn homes into batteries and even charge electric vehicles while they are driving.
One of the biggest challenges facing the widespread adoption of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power is storage. Energy must be available when the wind is not blowing or when the sun goes down. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have now created a supercapacitor that could transform buildings into energy storage systems. Their findings were published in the journal PNAS.
The team combined two of the most abundant materials on Earth: cement and carbon black. When mixed with water, the material becomes a supercapacitor thanks to the electrical conductivity of the carbon black. As water reacts with the cement, it forms a network of tiny channels through which the carbon black migrates, creating thread like structures with fractal shapes. This process generates a very large contact surface between the carbon black and the cement. The material is then soaked in a standard electrolyte, such as potassium chloride. By connecting two plates of this material separated by a membrane, the researchers are able to create a functional supercapacitor.
According to the researchers, the energy density of their supercapacitor reaches about 300 watt hours per cubic meter. That is enough to power a light bulb for a day, but not much more. However, if around 45 cubic meters of this material were integrated into a building’s foundations, a home could store roughly 10 kilowatt hours of energy. That would be enough to cover the daily electricity needs of many households.
So far, the researchers have produced small button cell sized prototypes measuring about one centimeter in diameter and one millimeter thick, capable of delivering one volt. Their next goal is to develop a larger 12 volt version and eventually scale the technology up to structures containing as much as 45 cubic meters of material.
Beyond powering buildings, the team suggests that this technology could also be embedded into roads. In the future, it could make it possible to charge electric vehicles wirelessly as they drive, turning infrastructure itself into an active part of the energy system. Combined with renewable energy sources, such innovations could significantly reshape how electricity is stored and distributed.
but the BBC look to have mentioned it in 2024
https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20 ... -a-battery
Concrete is perhaps the most commonly used building material in the world. With a bit of tweaking, it could help to power our homes too.
On a laboratory bench in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a stack of polished cylinders of black-coloured concrete sit bathed in liquid and entwined in cables. To a casual observer, they aren't doing much. But then Damian Stefaniuk flicks a switch. The blocks of human-made rock are wired up to an LED – and the bulb flickers into life.
"At first I didn't believe it," says Stefaniuk, describing the first time the LED lit up. "I thought that I hadn't disconnected the external power source, and that was why the LED was on.
"It was a wonderful day. We invited students, and I invited professors to see, because at first they didn't believe that it worked either."
The reason for the excitement? This innocuous, dark lump of concrete could represent the future of energy storage.
The promise of most renewable energy sources is that of endless clean power, bestowed on us by the Sun, wind and sea.
Yet the Sun isn't always shining, the wind isn't always blowing, and still waters do not, in megawatt terms, run deep. These are energy sources that are intermittent, which, in our energy-hungry modern world, poses a problem.
It means that we need to store that energy in batteries. But batteries rely on materials such as lithium, which is in far shorter supply than is likely to be needed to meet the demand created by the world's quest to decarbonise its energy and transport systems. There are 101 lithium mines in the world, and economic analysts are pessimistic about the ability of these mines to keep up with growing global demand. Environmental analysts note that lithium mining uses a lot of energy and water, which nibble away at the environmental benefits of switching to renewable energy sources in the first place. The processes involved in extracting lithium can also sometimes lead to toxic chemicals leaking into local water supplies.
Despite some new discoveries of lithium reserves, the finite supply of this material, the over-reliance on just a handful of mines around the world and its environmental impact have driven the search for alternative battery materials.
This is where Stefaniuk and his concrete come in. He and his colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found a way of creating an energy storage device known as a supercapacitor from three basic, cheap materials – water, cement and a soot-like substance called carbon black.
Supercapacitors are highly efficient at storing energy but differ from batteries in some important ways. They can charge much more quickly than a lithium ion battery and don't suffer from the same levels of degradation in performance. But supercapacitors also release the power they store rapidly, making them less useful in devices such as mobile phones, laptops or electric cars where a steady supply of energy is needed over an extended period of time.
Yet according to Stefaniuk, carbon-cement supercapacitors could make an important contribution to efforts to decarbonise the global economy. "If it can be scaled up, the technology can help solve an important issue – the storing of renewable energy," he says.
He and his fellow researchers at MIT and Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, envisage several applications for their supercapacitors.
One might be to create roads that store solar energy and then release it to recharge electric cars wirelessly as they drive along a road. The rapid release of energy from the carbon-cement supercapacitor would allow vehicles to get a rapid boost to their batteries. Another would be as energy-storing foundations of houses – "to have walls, or foundations, or columns, that are active not only in supporting a structure, but also in that energy is stored inside them", says Stefaniuk.
But it is still early days. For now, the concrete supercapacitor can store a little under 300 watt-hours per cubic metre – enough to power a 10-watt LED lightbulb for 30 hours.
The power output "may seem low compared to conventional batteries, [but] a foundation with 30-40 cubic metres (1,060-1,410 cubic feet) of concrete could be sufficient to meet the daily energy needs of a residential house", says Stefaniuk. "Given the widespread use of concrete globally, this material has the potential to be highly competitive and useful in energy storage."
Stefaniuk and his colleagues at MIT initially proved the concept by creating cent-sized 1V supercapacitors from the material before connecting together in series to power a 3V LED. They have since scaled this up to produce a 12V supercapacitor. Stefaniuk has also been able to use larger versions of the supercapacitor to power a handheld games console.
And the research team are now planning to build larger versions, including one up to 45 cubic metres (1,590 cubic feet) in size that would be able store around 10kWh of energy needed to power to power a house for a day.
The supercapacitor works due to an unusual property of carbon black – it is highly conductive. This means that when carbon black is combined with cement powder and water, it makes for a kind of concrete that is full of networks of conductive material, taking a form that resembles ever-branching, tiny roots.
Capacitors are formed of two conductive plates with a membrane in between them. In this case, both plates are made of the carbon black cement, which were soaked in an electrolyte salt called potassium chloride.
When an electric current was applied to the salt-soaked plates, the positively-charged plates accumulated negatively charged ions from the potassium chloride. And because the membrane prevented charged ions from being exchanged between the plates, the separation of charges created an electric field.
As supercapacitors can accumulate large amounts of charge very quickly, it could make the devices useful for storing excess energy produced by intermittent renewable sources such as the wind and solar. This would take the pressure off the grid at times when the wind is not blowing, nor the Sun shining. As Stefaniuk says, "A simple example would be an off-grid house powered by solar panels: using solar energy directly during the day and the energy stored in, for example, the foundations during the night."
Supercapacitors are not perfect. Existing iterations discharge power quickly, and are not ideal for steady output, which would be needed to power a house throughout the day. Stefaniuk says he and his colleagues are working on a solution that would allow their carbon-cement version to be tuned by adjusting the mixture, but they will not disclose the details until they have finalised the tests and published a paper.
https://www.futura-sciences.com/en/they ... ent_24569/
Researchers at MIT have developed cement based supercapacitors capable of storing renewable energy. This technology could turn homes into batteries and even charge electric vehicles while they are driving.
One of the biggest challenges facing the widespread adoption of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power is storage. Energy must be available when the wind is not blowing or when the sun goes down. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have now created a supercapacitor that could transform buildings into energy storage systems. Their findings were published in the journal PNAS.
The team combined two of the most abundant materials on Earth: cement and carbon black. When mixed with water, the material becomes a supercapacitor thanks to the electrical conductivity of the carbon black. As water reacts with the cement, it forms a network of tiny channels through which the carbon black migrates, creating thread like structures with fractal shapes. This process generates a very large contact surface between the carbon black and the cement. The material is then soaked in a standard electrolyte, such as potassium chloride. By connecting two plates of this material separated by a membrane, the researchers are able to create a functional supercapacitor.
According to the researchers, the energy density of their supercapacitor reaches about 300 watt hours per cubic meter. That is enough to power a light bulb for a day, but not much more. However, if around 45 cubic meters of this material were integrated into a building’s foundations, a home could store roughly 10 kilowatt hours of energy. That would be enough to cover the daily electricity needs of many households.
So far, the researchers have produced small button cell sized prototypes measuring about one centimeter in diameter and one millimeter thick, capable of delivering one volt. Their next goal is to develop a larger 12 volt version and eventually scale the technology up to structures containing as much as 45 cubic meters of material.
Beyond powering buildings, the team suggests that this technology could also be embedded into roads. In the future, it could make it possible to charge electric vehicles wirelessly as they drive, turning infrastructure itself into an active part of the energy system. Combined with renewable energy sources, such innovations could significantly reshape how electricity is stored and distributed.
but the BBC look to have mentioned it in 2024
https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20 ... -a-battery
Concrete is perhaps the most commonly used building material in the world. With a bit of tweaking, it could help to power our homes too.
On a laboratory bench in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a stack of polished cylinders of black-coloured concrete sit bathed in liquid and entwined in cables. To a casual observer, they aren't doing much. But then Damian Stefaniuk flicks a switch. The blocks of human-made rock are wired up to an LED – and the bulb flickers into life.
"At first I didn't believe it," says Stefaniuk, describing the first time the LED lit up. "I thought that I hadn't disconnected the external power source, and that was why the LED was on.
"It was a wonderful day. We invited students, and I invited professors to see, because at first they didn't believe that it worked either."
The reason for the excitement? This innocuous, dark lump of concrete could represent the future of energy storage.
The promise of most renewable energy sources is that of endless clean power, bestowed on us by the Sun, wind and sea.
Yet the Sun isn't always shining, the wind isn't always blowing, and still waters do not, in megawatt terms, run deep. These are energy sources that are intermittent, which, in our energy-hungry modern world, poses a problem.
It means that we need to store that energy in batteries. But batteries rely on materials such as lithium, which is in far shorter supply than is likely to be needed to meet the demand created by the world's quest to decarbonise its energy and transport systems. There are 101 lithium mines in the world, and economic analysts are pessimistic about the ability of these mines to keep up with growing global demand. Environmental analysts note that lithium mining uses a lot of energy and water, which nibble away at the environmental benefits of switching to renewable energy sources in the first place. The processes involved in extracting lithium can also sometimes lead to toxic chemicals leaking into local water supplies.
Despite some new discoveries of lithium reserves, the finite supply of this material, the over-reliance on just a handful of mines around the world and its environmental impact have driven the search for alternative battery materials.
This is where Stefaniuk and his concrete come in. He and his colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found a way of creating an energy storage device known as a supercapacitor from three basic, cheap materials – water, cement and a soot-like substance called carbon black.
Supercapacitors are highly efficient at storing energy but differ from batteries in some important ways. They can charge much more quickly than a lithium ion battery and don't suffer from the same levels of degradation in performance. But supercapacitors also release the power they store rapidly, making them less useful in devices such as mobile phones, laptops or electric cars where a steady supply of energy is needed over an extended period of time.
Yet according to Stefaniuk, carbon-cement supercapacitors could make an important contribution to efforts to decarbonise the global economy. "If it can be scaled up, the technology can help solve an important issue – the storing of renewable energy," he says.
He and his fellow researchers at MIT and Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, envisage several applications for their supercapacitors.
One might be to create roads that store solar energy and then release it to recharge electric cars wirelessly as they drive along a road. The rapid release of energy from the carbon-cement supercapacitor would allow vehicles to get a rapid boost to their batteries. Another would be as energy-storing foundations of houses – "to have walls, or foundations, or columns, that are active not only in supporting a structure, but also in that energy is stored inside them", says Stefaniuk.
But it is still early days. For now, the concrete supercapacitor can store a little under 300 watt-hours per cubic metre – enough to power a 10-watt LED lightbulb for 30 hours.
The power output "may seem low compared to conventional batteries, [but] a foundation with 30-40 cubic metres (1,060-1,410 cubic feet) of concrete could be sufficient to meet the daily energy needs of a residential house", says Stefaniuk. "Given the widespread use of concrete globally, this material has the potential to be highly competitive and useful in energy storage."
Stefaniuk and his colleagues at MIT initially proved the concept by creating cent-sized 1V supercapacitors from the material before connecting together in series to power a 3V LED. They have since scaled this up to produce a 12V supercapacitor. Stefaniuk has also been able to use larger versions of the supercapacitor to power a handheld games console.
And the research team are now planning to build larger versions, including one up to 45 cubic metres (1,590 cubic feet) in size that would be able store around 10kWh of energy needed to power to power a house for a day.
The supercapacitor works due to an unusual property of carbon black – it is highly conductive. This means that when carbon black is combined with cement powder and water, it makes for a kind of concrete that is full of networks of conductive material, taking a form that resembles ever-branching, tiny roots.
Capacitors are formed of two conductive plates with a membrane in between them. In this case, both plates are made of the carbon black cement, which were soaked in an electrolyte salt called potassium chloride.
When an electric current was applied to the salt-soaked plates, the positively-charged plates accumulated negatively charged ions from the potassium chloride. And because the membrane prevented charged ions from being exchanged between the plates, the separation of charges created an electric field.
As supercapacitors can accumulate large amounts of charge very quickly, it could make the devices useful for storing excess energy produced by intermittent renewable sources such as the wind and solar. This would take the pressure off the grid at times when the wind is not blowing, nor the Sun shining. As Stefaniuk says, "A simple example would be an off-grid house powered by solar panels: using solar energy directly during the day and the energy stored in, for example, the foundations during the night."
Supercapacitors are not perfect. Existing iterations discharge power quickly, and are not ideal for steady output, which would be needed to power a house throughout the day. Stefaniuk says he and his colleagues are working on a solution that would allow their carbon-cement version to be tuned by adjusting the mixture, but they will not disclose the details until they have finalised the tests and published a paper.