Can you use a brick to charge your laptop? Researchers are one step closer to creating electric walls

Tiny red bricks, photographed in a Washington University chemistry lab, are used to make batteries that can store and conduct electrical current. — St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS

ST. LOUIS: Washington University scientists have figured out how to transform a simple red brick into a power source for electronic devices.

The amount of energy the bricks can store is small now – not enough to power up a laptop. But researchers see a time when just a few bricks could store enough energy to feed an entire home.