Electrifying Concrete

DysCrete is an in­no­va­tive ap­proach to the gen­er­a­tion of en­er­gy, based on the same un­der­ly­ing prin­ci­ples as dye-sen­si­tized so­lar cells (DYSC), from which it gains its name. Like other cells based on DYSC tech­nol­o­gy, DysCrete us­es or­gan­ic dyes to ab­sorb light and pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty through elec­tro­chem­i­cal re­ac­tions. Anal­y­sis of this still nov­el pro­cess re­veals a high de­gree of com­pat­i­bil­i­ty be­tween DYSC tech­nol­o­gy and the chem­istry and physics of con­crete, in­clud­ing its ma­te­rial log­ic and pro­duc­tion meth­ods. DYSC cells are mod­eled on na­ture. Much like chloro­phyll-bear­ing plants, they ab­sorb light not with semi­con­duc­tor ma­te­rials, but with or­gan­ic dyes held in sus­pen­sion. In this sense, the tech­nol­o­gy is an adap­ta­tion of the pho­to­syn­thet­ic pro­cess.