Just imagine, a house, a structure of its own, could store energy. In other words, each brick that makes up the wall could act as a battery. While technically feasible, this is a surprising idea for researchers at the University of Washington. Julio D’Arcy and his team worked on the chemistry of the rust that gives the Martian plains their reddish color. The same is true of the bricks used in construction on Earth. Both share the iron precursor mineral hematite or iron oxide. As such, hematite is electrically conductive and acts as an electrode. Adding the porous microstructure of the bricks makes the possibilities even more apparent.
Once the theory was established, Darcy and his team infused two vapors into the brick microstructure. Upon encountering hematite ores, these produced a polymer he called PEDOT.This innovative technology project, a brick containing 8% hematite was used, which thanks to the treatment became a material capable of storing and releasing energy. They said that with 3 standard bricks he was able to turn on the LED light for 5 minutes.
These new bricks, as you’ll notice, aren’t dense enough to store a lot of energy. For one thing, it’s incredibly cheap to manufacture. It can also withstand multiple charge-discharge cycles without losing its properties. In D’Arcy’s experiment, he was subjected to 10,000 cycles while the brick maintained his 90% efficiency. And thirdly, it continues to work regardless of temperature or rain.
Given that houses typically have hundreds of bricks built into them, it’s not unreasonable to think that energy storage capacity, especially from solar panels, would offer real benefits. The developer believes 50 bricks are enough to power an emergency light for 5 hours. In fact, such solutions contribute to more sustainable construction.
sand battery
Brick is not the only popular material candidate for development innovative batteryResearchers at the University of California have explored the possibility of using sand as a component in models that last three times longer than current models. One of his team members (remember, this is California) got his inspiration from the sand on the beach while surfing. The result is a coin-sized battery that uses sand as the anode instead of traditional graphite. The first step in the process was finding a type of sand rich in quartz, also known as silicon dioxide. It was then ground very finely at the nanometer scale and refined to yield quartz. Finally, the salt and magnesium were mixed and heated. Salt retains heat, but magnesium has the property of absorbing oxygen, so when the oxygen eventually runs out, quartz turns into silicon.
The developers point out that the silicon obtained is in a porous state. This increases the usable surface area and increases conductivity. Who knows if this type of battery will improve the durability of current lithium models and help cell phones and other devices finally get through his day.
sauce: IFL Science, ZME Science
