this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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MIT engineers created a carbon-cement supercapacitor 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.

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[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (13 children)

The original paper says you'd need 45 cubic meters of this stuff to store the daily energy for one house, which is about 60 yards of concrete. But even a relatively thick 5" pad that's 1500 square feet only has 23 yards of concrete in it.

So they'd have to improve the energy density by 3x before this is commercially viable.

[–] paper_clip@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Yeah, but you can use it for demand smoothing: store the collected solar during the day and use that at night.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

If you’re gonna use concrete anyway, this is definitely more useful. But if you’re going to use it as your only battery you’re better off with other technologies.

[–] parrot-party@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

You're assuming they can repurpose structural concrete with this stuff. It's highly unlikely that this capacitor material could be structural. If it's not a strength concern then it'll certainly be an efficiency one. I doubt you want metal things and people walking on your capacitor.

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