🔎 What’s going on?
Researchers from Washington University have published a proof-of-concept paper in Nature Communications that shows a house brick powering a green LED light. Nanotechnology has been used to turn bricks into battery storage.
🏠 Cool, what does it mean?
The humble brick has been used as a building material since at least 4000 BC. Brick’s have two qualities that enable this proof-of-concept: 1) a porous structure (meaning they have super tiny or nano holes in their structure - similar to a foam) and 2) their red pigment, which comes from the clay that contains iron oxide (or rust).
In the first instance, researchers have figured out how to convert the red pigment in bricks into a plastic that conducts electricity. A chemical process converts the iron oxide to a reactive form of iron and then it is combined with a sulphur-based material to activate the reaction with the iron. This chemical reaction creates a special plastic network called PEDOT, which conducts electricity. They are also called ‘plastic nanofibers’.
Due to the porous nature of bricks, the pores can be filled with these super tiny nanofibres of plastic that can conduct or store charge. This essentially turns a brick into a ‘supercapacitor’ that can store electrical charge. These bricks have been proven to power small LED lights. That is a huge breakthrough in the space of energy storage.
❓Why should I care?
In the UK, carbon emissions from buildings account for 34% of total emissions in 2014. What’s really interesting here is that almost 50% of emissions come directly from burning fossil fuels (gas) for heating buildings. The other half is related to electricity in the form of lighting, use of appliances and electric heating.
As we know energy storage is the key missing factor in scaling both solar and wind energy. This is because solar and wind energy are ‘intermittent renewable energy sources’, meaning they are not available continuously.
🚦Where do we need to be?
This nanotechnology is an early-stage proof-of-concept stage, so we have a long way to go before this is available commercially and at scale. However, this is still considered a massive breakthrough because it’s offering a brand new solution to the market. If the energy density of these bricks can match Lithium-ion batteries in the future (it’s currently just 1% of the batteries), then it would be game-changing for buildings. It would also provide a much cheaper alternative to Lithium-ion batteries.
👤 What can I do about it?
Until these bricks are commercially available, there are still plenty of things we can all do to reduce the carbon footprint of our buildings:
- Switch to Renewable Energy
- Install good insulation
- Ensure you have double glazing windows and doors
- Switch to electric heating and cooling systems
- Switch to LED lighting
Check this post out for more tips!
Related: Gravitricity to pilot novel energy storage system