MIT, Japanese company to research some concrete steps for storing renewable energy, de-icing roads and sidewalks

MIT News reports on a five-year deal between the MIT Electron-conductive Cement-based Materials Hub and the Aizawa Concrete Corp. to research ways to use concrete in ways you really wouldn't think it could be: To replace lithium batteries to store energy created by wind and solar power and to create systems that could de-ice frozen roads and sidewalks.

The project builds on work by MIT researchers who discovered that plain old concrete "doped" with carbon black - which formed the ink the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in - could be used to store and then deliver electricity. It turns out the carbon black, when mixed with the concrete, "self assembles" into conductive wire-like structures that basically create a capacitor - which, like a battery, can hold an electrical charge.

One possible use: Building a house foundation out of the material, which could store electricity generated during the day by solar panels on the roof. Current attempts to store this energy with lithium batteries are hampered by the fact that lithium is relatively scarce, while concrete and carbon black are widely available and cheap.

Another: using carbon-black enhanced concrete to build roads and sidewalks. Connect them to a power source and they could heat up enough in the winter to melt ice.