Man-Made Material Pushes the Bounds of Superconductivity 133
An anonymous reader writes "A multi-university team of researchers has artificially engineered a unique multilayer material that could lead to breakthroughs in both superconductivity research and in real-world applications. The researchers can tailor the material, which seamlessly alternates between metal and oxide layers, to achieve extraordinary superconducting properties — in particular, the ability to transport much more electrical current than non-engineered materials."
Resistance and temperature (Score:5, Interesting)
The question -- as it always is -- is: What is the operating temperature range for this material? Because if it's still "refrigerate or die", applications will not expand much beyond where they are today.
If we get superconductors we can use as power transmission lines in normal environmental temperature ranges, that'll be a serious game-changer.
Re:Resistance and temperature (Score:5, Interesting)
Power transmission is the easy one to see a payoff for, though. I've seen various sources claiming power line losses run anywhere from 7% to 17%. Also consider the energy we use shipping trains full of coal from the mines across the country to the generating plants located near the consumers. Superconductive lines could enable them to build power plants near the mines and push the current over the grid.
Even if the tech was expensive to install on a per mile basis, if they could swap out the existing lines for superconducting lines, they wouldn't have to sign new land leasing deals for extra towers. Superconductors would enable them to shove 10X or 100X the power over the grid without having drastic changes elsewhere.
That's one of the biggest limiting factors to wind generation today, by the way. The grid across the sparsely populated windy plains was originally designed to carry just a few tens of megawatts into a region that doesn't have large industrial plants and doesn't see a high demand. It was never designed to carry gigawatts of power out of the area. New windmills are actually straining the existing grid. An efficient distribution network would let those prairie windmills sell power all the way out to the coasts.
Re:Resistance and temperature (Score:5, Interesting)
There are quite a few other relatively cheap options below 77K. In particular using vacuum to lower the temperature of liquid Nitrogen is pretty easy and gets you to 64K with the nitrogen still a liquid. Same trick with liquid Oxygen (also dirt cheap) gets you to 55K and liquid Neon is about 25K (and when we run out of easily mineable Helium it will be cheaper than helium). Liquid Hydrogen can be used at down to 14K using evacuation (20K at atmospheric pressure).
Paywalled into obscurity - try this thread instead (Score:2, Interesting)
Topological Superconductors - 300K and higher, but still not usable
The relevant google search [google.com].
A relevant result from Joint Quantum Institute [umd.edu]
Ultraconductors got killed in the 2008 market crash. Had they not got killed, they were making superconductors out of plastic, they called it Ultraconductor [chavaenergy.com]. (Not to be confused with the speaker cables of the same name). This stuff conducted at room temperature a million times better than silver! I have no doubt they could have done it, had the economy not killed them. Here are the relevant patents.
US Patent 5,777,292 [google.com] - Materials having high electrical conductivity at room teperatures and ... ...
US Patent 6,804,105 [google.com] - Enriched macromolecular materials having temperature-independent high
Here's a 2005 interview (.pdf, sorry), which may give some insight about Ultraconductor.
The 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry [nobelprize.org] (pdf) offers some good info about conductive polymers.
US Patent 7,014,795 [google.com] discusses the growth of crystalized electron pairs (otherwise referred to as polarons in other places), the diagrams are especially helpful.
I believe it is well within the capabilities of any non-chemistry adverse hackerspace to eventually create polymer cables which are 10 to 10 million times better than silver at conducting electricity.