Plan to commercialize supercapacitors in the next few years

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 16 points 3 years ago (2 children)

One of the big catches is how Greenhouse gas intensive concrete production is

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    I think the idea here is to bake it into construction that would happen anyway. If you just need energy storage, keep using batteries. But if you're pouring a foundation already, why not also turn that foundation into a battery?

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    concrete seems to be used here for its structural properties, just like we do it today. Their solution doesn't seem to require it:

    If more powerful capacitors are required, they can be made with a larger concentration of carbon black, at the expense of some structural strength. This could be useful for applications where the concrete is not playing a structural role or where the full strength potential of concrete is not required. For applications such as a foundation, or structural elements of the base of a wind turbine, the “sweet spot” is around 10 percent carbon black in the mix, the team says.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    And how greenhouse gas intensive is carbon black production?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    If it's just a byproduct of other industries, like existing coal power plants, it might be seen as carbon neutral. And lithium batteries also use it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Carbon black is produced bij burning a hydrocarbon with a limited amount of air. It's not a byproduct, but uses organic materials. This can be of renewable sources like vegetable oil, but it is made a lot from the heavy fractions in fossil oil.

  • source
  • parent