27
votes
Cheap to make, and easily scalable supercapacitor demonstrated by MIT
Link information
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- Title
- New Breakthrough in Energy Storage - MIT Engineers Create Supercapacitor out of Ancient Materials
- Published
- Oct 4 2023
- Word count
- 1565 words
Fascinating, how they figured out a way to make such common materials into what is essentially a giant battery. The best part is that they can, quite literally, build a foundation of a house and have it potentially store the renewable energy generated throughout the day, releasing it as needed.
One thing I didn’t see touched upon though, and not sure if it’s even an issue, is if it would lose capacity over time, like current battery technology. If so, could we go about replacing it, or repairing it to bring back storage capacity? The how though, sounds like another engineering problem.
This was on my mind as well, I wonder if there would be a similar crystalization problem over time as we see with lithium cells.
There won't be crystalization like batteries, however there could be other forms of degradation over time. It sounds like microscopic channels form in the material and it's not clear how temperature changes might affect those. If the channels collapse over time it would certainly reduce the capacity. This will be a really interesting innovation to see develop though!
Some comparison between the tech if you're interested:
Batteries store electricity in the form of chemical energy. When you discharge a battery a chemical reaction takes place between the two metals in battery which transports electrons from one metal to the other (which can be used along the way by what ever the battery is connected to). Capacitors don't store energy in a chemical form. Instead they rely on creating a difference in charge between two surfaces. You'll see the fundamental effect when ever you get shocked. When you slide your feet across carpet you can pick up loose electrons which sit on the surface of body and make you slightly negatively charged. When you reach for a metal surface which is neutrally charged you'll feel a shock as electrons rush off your body to balance the charge between your body and the metal. Capacitors essential do the same thing.
In the case of super capacitors, scientists and research engineers have found clever ways of increasing the amount of charge stored on both surfaces. One way that comes up in this paper is that the electrolyte (the salt solution) allows one surface to get covered in positively charged particles and the other side with negatively charged particles. I think this effectively allows them to double the storage capacity!
Let me know if anything doesn't come across clearly as I'm happy to clarify anything that doesn't make since. Batteries and capacitors aren't my field of study, however I work adjacent to a lot of folks studying them so I at least know enough to keep up with what they do.
Also important to know when talking about house foundations, how does it affect the structural integrity of the foundation? Both during construction, and 50+ years later.
Super interesting though. Even if you can't literally build a whole house out of it, incorporating it into non-structural areas would still be potentially very useful.
The paper also only mentions it being a mix of carbon black, portland cement, a superplasticizer, and water. No mention of rebar/reinforcement or aggregate. Cement isn't structural, concrete is, cement is an ingredient of concrete and typically comprises about 10-15% of the concrete mix.
Very interested in seeing them scale this up, but 100% cement is not structurally usable and very expensive comparatively.
By filling the voids in cement with a conducrive material, Carbon Black, and attaching nodes MIT has demonstrated a really cheap and scalable way to hold energy.
Energy storage is a big deal and important to nail down as we transition to green energy. We need a way to store energy when too much is made, and a way to regulate grid load.