Why can’t the steel rebar just be part of the conductive carbon anode?
The design already assumes the concrete is riddled with conductive material. Why would adding fat wires hurt?
Comment on New Breakthrough in Energy Storage – MIT Engineers Create Supercapacitor out of Ancient Materials
mosiacmango@lemm.ee 11 months agoI doubt it. The carbon acts as the conductor to the cement’s insulator. Adding rebar is likely going to cause issues. I expect this wont have applications in high rises, more akin to a cinder block or poured concrete foundations that wouldn’t need reinforcement.
Might honestly be a fatal flaw for most applications where we currently use concrete, but maybe purpose built devices would still make sense at power plants/etc.
deegeese@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Maybe different for different regions but I’m pretty sure foundations will generally have a small amount of steel mesh at a minimum to stop cracking. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong though and hopefully they find a way around this limitation as well. Carbon fibre can also be used from memory but I haven’t seen it that often presumably due to cost.
hoxbug@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Maybe for home foundations and the like, glass fiber rebar could be used.
fhqwgads@possumpat.io 11 months ago
Epoxy coated rebar is already a thing, so insulated rebar shouldn’t be that big of a deal - if epoxy isn’t enough already.