Recently, the engineering metamaterials team led by Academician Miao Changwen, Professor She Wei and Professor Zhang Wei, from the School of Materials Science and Engineering and the State Key Laboratory of Engineering Materials for Major Infrastructure of Southeast University, has published a research paper entitled Geopolymer-based electrolytes derived from industrial solid waste for structural energy storage online in Joule (impact factor = 36.7), a flagship sub-journal of Cell Press. The team pioneered a "viscoelastic pore-forming, pore-tailoring and pore-controlling" strategy, which realizes the transformation of industrial solid waste into high-performance engineering metamaterials for structural energy storage, and provides new insights for the future integrated development of green energy storage and low-carbon buildings.
Concept of geopolymer synthesis and integrated building energy storage.
A) Schematic illustration of the fabrication process of geopolymer-based electrolyte using industrial solid waste as raw materials (B) Comparison of ion transport behavior in macroporous structure and hierarchically porous structure (C) Schematic concept of future building systems with integrated energy storage functions
Energy-storage technologies are usually designed as stand-alone devices, while buildings remain largely passive structures that consume materials and space. At the same time, industrial solid wastes such as fly ash and slag are generated in enormous quantities, creating environmental burdens but also offering an underused source of aluminosilicate raw materials. Geopolymers provide a low-carbon pathway to convert these wastes into mechanically robust construction materials, yet their value in energy storage has been limited by insufficient ion transport.
In this work,they address this challenge by designing a geopolymer–polyacrylamide (Geo-PAAm) electrolyte that integrates structural strength with efficient Zn2+ conduction. A viscoelastic-controlled strategy regulates bubble formation and stabilizes an interconnected hierarchical pore network, consisting of micro- and macropores. Rather than simply increasing porosity, this architecture improves pore connectivity and creates shortened, efficient ion-transport pathways that can be compared conceptually to a brachistochrone curve. The resulting electrolyte exhibits high ionic conductivity, stable Zn plating/stripping, and durable zinc-ion full-cell performance, while retaining the mechanical robustness required for brick-like structural batteries.
The scale of the advance lies in linking three needs: solid-waste valorization, safer aqueous energy storage, and multifunctional building components. By using abundant industrial byproducts and avoiding the high-temperature processing associated with ordinary cement, Geo-PAAm points toward lower-carbon materials that can both bear load and store energy. This concept may enable walls, bricks, and other infrastructure elements to become distributed energy-storage units, providing a practical route toward scalable and sustainable energy-storage-integrated buildings.
