Black Technology Solar Energy Storage

Could carbon black form a low-cost energy storage system?

Two of humanity's most ubiquitous historical materials, cement and carbon black (which resembles very fine charcoal), may form the basis for a novel, low-cost energy storage system, according to a new study.

What is a solar energy storage system?

Herein, a highly efficient solar energy storage system is designed with polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), a high light-transmittance polymer, as the compact shell and organic PCM (eicosane) together with PMMA-modified black phosphorus sheets (mBPs) as the core.

What is MIT's new energy storage technology?

MIT engineers developed the new energy storage technology—a new type of concrete—based on two ancient materials: cement, which has been used for thousands of years, and carbon black, a black powder used as ink for the Dead Sea Scrolls around 2,000 years ago.

What is the energy storage capacity of a carbon black network?

The energy storage capacity of this space-filling carbon black network of the high specific surface area accessible to charge storage is shown to be an intensive quantity, whereas the high-rate capability of the carbon-cement electrodes exhibits self-similarity due to the hydration porosity available for charge transport.

Could a carbon black horn be a scalable energy storage solution?

Credit: Image courtesy of Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn Constructed from cement, carbon black, and water, the device holds the potential to offer affordable and scalable energy storage for renewable energy sources.

How many kilowatt-hours of electricity can a block of black-doped concrete store?

The team calculated that a block of nanocarbon-black-doped concrete that is 45 cubic meters (or yards) in size -- equivalent to a cube about 3.5 meters across -- would have enough capacity to store about 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which is considered the average daily electricity usage for a household.