S. Korea innovates cement-based composite to make concrete generate and store electricity

• 2 December 2021
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Engineers from three major universities in South Korea—Incheon National University, Kyung Hee University and Korea University—have recently unveiled an innovation known as a cement-based composite that will make concrete surfaces of buildings generate and store electricity.

According to the Global Construction Review report, with this innovation installed, the structure can generate and store electricity through exposure to external mechanical energy sources like footsteps, wind, rain and waves.

Meanwhile, the carbon fibre compound in the cement will act as a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), a type of mechanical energy harvester.

By turning structures into power sources, the cement will crack the problem of the built environment consuming 40% of the world’s energy, engineers believed.

Besides, building users need not worry about getting electrocuted. Tests showed that a 1% volume of conductive carbon fibres in a cement mixture was enough to give the cement the desired electrical properties without compromising structural performance, and the current generated was far lower than the maximum allowable level for the human body.

• Technology and Engineering