Scientists Turn Normal Red Bricks into Electricity-Storing Supercapacitors

[M II A II R II K]

Scientists Turn Normal Red Bricks into Electricity-Storing Supercapacitors


August 11, 2020

By Becky Ferreira

Read More: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9...upercapacitors

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Scientists modified a common red brick, the same kind you’ll find on sale for under a dollar at your local hardware store so that it could power a green LED light. This proof-of-concept for a “smart brick” reveals that brick technology, which dates back thousands of years, can be tweaked to have futuristic applications, including electrical conductivity and sensing capabilities.

- “We have created a new brick that can be incorporated into your house that has the functionality of storing electrical energy,” said study co-author Julio D'Arcy, assistant professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, in a call. “We are thinking that sensing applications is a low-hanging fruit for these bricks,” he added. — For years, D’Arcy and his colleagues have experimented with rust, the ubiquitous reddish film that forms on any structure that contains iron. Rust is normally seen as a corrosive nuisance, but D’Arcy’s team has shown that rusty iron oxides have useful properties for material science. — “We discovered that if you actually treat rust chemically, it actually becomes reactive,” D’Arcy explained. “So something that we typically think of as waste turns out to be a useful chemical for producing materials that can be used for storing energy.”

- The pigment in red bricks is partially derived from rust, which inspired the researchers to take a closer look at the structural properties of bricks to see if they could be converted to an energy-storing device called a supercapacitor. The intricate porous interiors of bricks turned out to be an ideal space to introduce sophisticated polymer coatings, which react with rust to increase the surface area and conductivity of bricks. — As a result of the modifications, the team was able to engineer a prototype smart brick that stored enough energy to power the green light. The team is currently building on its findings by manufacturing specialized bricks with various metal oxides and polymer coatings. In addition to tinkering with conductivities and storage capacity, the researchers hope to demonstrate that air sensors or water purification systems could be integrated into the bricks.

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These photos and microscope images show the structure of a common fired red brick before and after deposition of nanofibrillar coating that increases surface area within the brick. Image: The D’Arcy Laboratory in Washington University in St. Louis

[Adelyar]

That is really cool! i have a very good idea, have you seen the guy from China that was collecting the dust with the help of the vacuum cleaner and the he was producing bricks with it? So that could be a very nice invention, to make energy from from dust in a few steps. The process is kinda long, but if we use big vacuum cleaners, than we can do it quicker. To sum up, the idea is pretty good, it is possible, but it will not replace a powerful 12000 watt generator at the moment. So we need to think more in order to optimize it and increase the power.