Plan to commercialize supercapacitors in the next few years

  • Eager Eagle
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    311 months ago

    concrete seems to be used here for its structural properties, just like we do it today. Their solution doesn’t seem to require it:

    If more powerful capacitors are required, they can be made with a larger concentration of carbon black, at the expense of some structural strength. This could be useful for applications where the concrete is not playing a structural role or where the full strength potential of concrete is not required. For applications such as a foundation, or structural elements of the base of a wind turbine, the “sweet spot” is around 10 percent carbon black in the mix, the team says.

    • zout
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      211 months ago

      And how greenhouse gas intensive is carbon black production?

      • @deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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        711 months ago

        If you’re releasing CO2 you’re losing carbon.

        If you make it with electricity it’s effectively a carbon sink.

      • Eager Eagle
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        411 months ago

        If it’s just a byproduct of other industries, like existing coal power plants, it might be seen as carbon neutral. And lithium batteries also use it.

        • zout
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          111 months ago

          Carbon black is produced bij burning a hydrocarbon with a limited amount of air. It’s not a byproduct, but uses organic materials. This can be of renewable sources like vegetable oil, but it is made a lot from the heavy fractions in fossil oil.