If this concept is a reality someday, future concrete buildings will be giant rechargeable batteries charged by solar panels. All energy need for the buildings will be generated by themselves and stored inside the concrete structure. How amazing is this concept? right. The whole world is looking for new concepts for reducing fossil fuel burning and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Because every life on the planet depends on it.
Thanks to Professor Luping Tang and Dr. Emma Zhang, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden to bring this exceptional new finding to the world to support making a sustainable world in the future.
Their concept is to make the cement base mixture added with a small number of carbon fibers to increase the conductivity and flexure toughness. Also, they embedded to the mixture metal-coated carbon-fiber mesh – iron for the anode, and nickel for the cathode. After so many experiments they can able to make a prototype for preset the concept.
This technology still in the early stage but somehow it will be a reality in the future. According to Dr. Emma Zhang, this cement base rechargeable battery still delivers lower performance. The average density is 7 Watthours per square metre (or 0.8 Watthours per litre). However, this is the world first rechargable battery in this kind of tech.
But, surely they will develop it for commercial use soon. Then you can fulfill all of your energy requirement of the building using this renewable energy source such as powering LEDs and other electrical equipment providing 4G connections in remote areas, or cathodic protection against corrosion in concrete infrastructure.