Now, chemists have discovered new potential in these ubiquitous building blocks: Through a series of reactions, scientists have shown that conventional bricks can be transformed into energy-saving devices that are powerful enough to turn on LED lights.
While scientists warn that much more development is needed before these “smart bricks” are commercially available, they say the evidence holds conceptual promise that one day the walls of a home can be turned into a battery to conserve sustainable energy.
“What we have shown in our paper is sufficient enough for you to illuminate emergency lighting that is in a hall or sensors that can be embedded in the walls of a house,” said Julio M. D’Arcy , an assistant professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. Louis, Missouri, and one of the authors of the study.
“The next step is to try to conserve more energy so you can send larger devices – like maybe a laptop – directly from the walls of the house.”
Bricks are praised by architects for their aesthetic appeal and ability to conserve heat, but using them to hold electricity has never been tried before, D’Arcy said.
To unleash their potential for energy storage, the researchers said they capitalized on the natural structure of brick.
“We took advantage of what bricks offer, and what they offer is a porous network and a very strong material,” said D’Arcy.
To allow the bricks to flow, the researchers pumped a series of gases through the labyrinth of pores into the brick. The gases react with the chemical components of the brick, and coating them with a web of plastic nanofiber, known as a PEDOT, which is a good conductor of electricity, he said.
The process turned the bricks of their normal red hue to a dark shade of blue.
Although comparable to batteries, D’Arcy said the “smart bricks” his team made are technically supercapacitors, which differ in some important ways from batteries.
Although they can store large amounts of energy, supercapacitors cannot keep up with that charge or provide sustained energy over long periods of time as batteries can.
“A battery will give you energy density that allows you to drive 300 miles, but a supercapacitor will be able to accelerate you very quickly at a red light,” D’Arcy said.
Still, scientists see potential in brick as a possible solution to green energy.
At present, these “smart bricks” cannot compete with the energy storage potential of the lithium-ion batteries used in many solar energy systems. However, there is optimism that this new technology could be developed to provide a new storage method with readily available materials.
“This study shows that there is potential to conserve electrical energy as well,” said Dan Brett, a professor of electrochemical engineering at University College London, who was not involved in the study.
“Performance is a long way short of customized (customized) supercapacitors, but the principle has been proven and there is important room for improvement in the storage characteristics by optimizing the structure and chemistry of the bricks. “
.
