A next-generation energy storage system made of cement and an ancient ink has the potential to massively scale-up renewable energy operations by transforming homes and roads into giant batteries, according to the scientists who invented it. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Wyss Institute in the US unveiled the design on Monday, claiming that supercapacitors made of this material have “great potential” to assist in the world’s transition to clean energy. “The material is fascinating because you have the most-used man made material in the world, cement, that is combined with carbon black, that is a well-known historical material – the Dead Sea Scrolls were written with it,” said MIT professor Admir Masic, who was involved in the research. “You have these at least two-millennia-old materials that when you combine them in a specific manner you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that’s when things get really interesting.” The concrete mix of cement and carbon black only requires water, making it a low-cost alternative to other energy storage systems being developed to allow energy networks to remain stable despite fluctuations to renewable energy sources like solar, wind and tidal power. The researchers say their supercapacitor could be used in the concrete foundations of a house to provide an entire day’s worth of energy without adding any additional construction costs. It could even eventually be used on concrete roadways to provide contactless recharging for electric cars as they travel. “There is a huge need for big energy storage,” said MIT professor Franz-Josef Ulm. “That’s where our technology is extremely promising, because cement is ubiquitous... [It] offers a new way of looking toward the future of concrete as part of the energy transition.” Early applications will likely be with isolated homes or buildings equipped with solar panels that do not have access to grid power. The concrete mixture can also be adjusted to serve other uses, the scientists noted, such as heating systems. A paper detailing the research, titled ‘Cement supercapacitors as a scalable energy storage solution’, was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. Read More Hundreds of years after it was discovered, one material is about to change the world Battery breakthroughs are about to trigger a transport revolution

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As YouTuber, musician and boxer KSI gears up for his next fight against ex-Love Island contestant Tommy Fury in October, the content creator has been taking aim at his opponent in a series of posts on X/Twitter – but one tweet mocking Fury has seen the Sidemen member branded “ableist” by social media users. KSI, real name Olajide “JJ” Olatunji, took to X on Thursday evening to share a series of posts mocking Fury, one of which featured a video of a disabled model flexing his muscles. In a caption accompanying the TikTok video from user @the_honest_1, JJ wrote: “Can’t lie, Tommy Fury has never looked better.” The clip was taken from the account of 20-year-old Amine Sheik, a person with a shorter upper body who has more than 193,000 followers on the social media platform. However, Olatunji has since been criticised for his use of the video, with X users labelling the “Holiday” singer “ableist” and “pathetic” for using a disabled person to belittle his rival: Neither KSI or Sheik have responded to the tweet and the backlash since it was posted. It is not the first time KSI has come under fire for comments and actions around disability, with the social media influencer previously being filmed giving a video message to an autistic fan telling them to “get well soon” before asking his friends “am I being r****ded” when he was met with shocked reactions. He also forced his editor to subtitle gibberish in a video from 2020 after his YouTube content started coming with closed captions – a feature which makes videos accessible for deaf viewers. In April, the YouTube star took a break from social media and apologised after he was filmed saying a racial slur during a ‘Sidemen Sunday’ parodying popular daytime game show Countdown. KSI fights Tommy Fury on 14 October in Manchester, with Prime co-founder Logan Paul also on the card against mixed martial artist Dillon Danis. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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