Developing structural electrolyte using local Saudi resources for energy storage

Due to the fossil fuel scarcity and greenhouse gas emissions during the last decades, there is an urgent need for the generation and storage of renewable energy sources. Currently, about 40% of energy consumption is consumed by a residential and commercial buildings. Thus zero-energy buildings attract more and more attention of researchers, which also requires renewable energy and energy storage. For such energy system demands, structural composite energy storage devices (SCESDs) such as structural supercapacitors (SSCs) are designed to apply in the areas of buildings due to weight savings, low maintenance cost, energy storage and conversion. As is known, electrodes materials are essential for conventional supercapacitors. However, electrolytes are also important components for structural supercapacitors (SSCs). In fact, structural electrolytes are required to combine load-bearing mechanical properties and ionic conductivities, which aim to realize the integration of electrochemical-mechanical performance of SSCs. The common structural electrolytes are ionic liquid-based electrolytes as ionic conductive phases and polymer materials as structural components, yet they are not very suitable for civil engineering applications. For civil engineering applications, SSCs in the form of cement-matrix composites are relevant. However, one of the most significant possible challenges for such SSCs is to develop structural electrolytes in the form of inorganic cementitious materials-based electrolytes, which need to present excellent mechanical properties, ionic conductivity and good compatibility with electrodes. Therefore, a new structural electrolyte based on local Saudi available resources having high strength and better ionic conductivity for building application is going to be developed in this work