High Temperature Superconductivity Record Smashed By Sulfur Hydride 80
KentuckyFC writes Physicists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany have measured sulfur hydride superconducting at 190 Kelvin or -83 degrees Centigrade, albeit at a pressure of 150 gigapascals, about the half that at the Earth's core. If confirmed, that's a significant improvement over the existing high pressure record of 164 kelvin. But that's not why this breakthrough is so important. Until now, all known high temperature superconductors have been ceramic mixes of materials such as copper, oxygen lithium, and so on, in which physicists do not yet understand how superconductivity works. By contrast, sulfur hydride is a conventional superconductor that is described by the BCS theory of superconductivity first proposed in 1957 and now well understood. Most physicists had thought that BCS theory somehow forbids high temperature superconductivity--the current BCS record-holder is magnesium diboride, which superconducts at just 39 Kelvin. Sulfur hydride smashes this record and will focus attention on other hydrogen-bearing materials that might superconduct at even higher temperatures. The team behind this work point to fullerenes, aromatic hydrocarbons and graphane as potential targets. And they suggest that instead of using high pressures to initiate superconductivity, other techniques such as doping, might work instead.
Doping? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doping? (Score:5, Funny)
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That's not a pun.
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It is an antanaclasis, which can be considered a type of pun. You dope.
What does santaclaus have to do with this?
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Oh Carbon (Score:5, Interesting)
fullerenes, aromatic hydrocarbons and graphane
Oh Carbon, is there anything you can't do?
Seriously. Superconductors, batteries [slashdot.org], capacitors [slashdot.org], bullet proof vests [slashdot.org], orbital cables, etc...?
Re:Oh Carbon (Score:5, Funny)
Melt. At least at standard pressures.
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Doesn't sound very practical except as a raw scientific discovery.
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Re:Oh Carbon (Score:5, Interesting)
The nice potential about a carbon-based superconductor would be the possibility that it could be produced very cheaply. Your raw materials are not a price-limiting factor - think "plastic". Thus there's the potential to be way cheaper than copper, yet superconducting. That would be a total game changer to say the least. Lower distribution costs, way more power to the home, far easier to do long-distance transmission, all electric motors being superconducting motors, nearly lossless electronic devices, potential for major improvements in computer performance, cheap maglev, and on and on. There's good reason why affordable room-temperature superconductors are one of the holy grails of modern technology. There's even a type of energy storage [wikipedia.org] system you can make with superconductors - one of the highest power density and efficiency energy storage methods known to man. The energy density will probably always be too low for electric vehicles, but if room temperature superconductors were cheap, that could be amazing for fixed-installation applications.
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I'd worry about magnetic energy storage for any non-industrial use. Aside from the fun one could have with immense magnetic fields, if some fault happens in the system the magnet will quench very quickly - explosively fast - releasing all the stored energy. That made a Hell of a mess when it happened in the LHC (admittedly, a big magnet), but since it was effectively in an underground concrete bunker, no one was hurt. I certainly wouldn't want one that could store a day's power for my house sitting next
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I was thinking more along the lines of as an electrical substation out in the desert buffering solar facilities or in the middle of a field buffering wind turbines, not something sitting in people's backyards. But yes, point well taken, the problem with a system with extremely high power density is, well, it can release energy extremely fast ;)
As for cooling, remember that we're talking about room temperature superconductors here. :)
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As for cooling, remember that we're talking about room temperature superconductors here. :)
Is it still room temperature if you're putting them 'out in the desert' next to the solar system without cooling?
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A rapid quench would destroy any magnet, sure, but a sacrificial safe quench system could probably be designed to handle this. Think of composite flywheels that can disintegrate safely. SCES can use conventional metal sacrificial busbar to dump energy into, kinetic energy absorbing materials, a strong case, etc.
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A gallon of gasoline has the same energy as 8 kg of TNT! It's all about how fast the energy is released.
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There's even a type of energy storage system you can make with superconductors - one of the highest power density and efficiency energy storage methods known to man.
The ultimate capacity of one of these systems is on the par with supercapacitors, and an order of magnitude lower than traditional chemical batteries. Their high power, low capacity, and functionally unlimited cycle life make them useful as a transient power filter, rather than a meaningful energy storage mechanism. Their sudden and nearly instantaneous quench makes them downright frightening as a sizable energy storage mechanism.
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What you're calling "ultimate capacity", you mean "energy density". Which is borderline irrelevant for fixed installations. The main factors for fixed installations is price per watt hour and longevity. SCES has longevity in spades. It's generally expensive because traditional superconductor materials are expensive and have extreme cooling requirements. But if both of these go away, then the situation is totally different.
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Well -83 C is very close to the sublimation temperature of dry ice (-78 C) -- maybe with a little tweak you can cool your superconducting carbon using another carbon compound already widely used for cooling.
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You forgot the most important application: meat. Tasty, tasty meat.
Here is a link for 110C superconductivity (Score:3)
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It's nice, but the compound in question only seems to display superconductivity for a while immediately after annealing, and has to be kept away from water or this quickly stops. This still may lead to a sizeable commercial application someday, but that's not by any means likely.
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Re:Here is a link for 110C superconductivity (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, yes, superconductors.org, otherwise known as "The Superconducting Enquirer" or "Weekly World Superconductors".
The site has a lot of information about superconductors; some of it is probably quite good. But it's been claiming above-room-temperature superconductivity for a couple of years now. The generally-accepted record for high-temperature superconductivity is around, what, 133 Kelvin? Superconductors.org has been publishing reports of higher temperatures since 2006 or 2007, if not before. While the rest of the world waits for confirmed and reproducible reports, superconductors.org seems to report every errant needle-twitch from every lab that ever tried to measure conductivity.
I have no doubt that new materials and theories will continue to yield higher transition temperatures. I have no doubt that, whenever that happens, superconductors.org will report it. It's just that you'll have to wade through an awful lot of bogus reports there first.
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They can see it works but yet they cannot understand it. Now why should I believe them when they say ghosts don't exists even though my grandma totally swears that she saw one about a month ago?
You should test it for yourself. See if you can make a superconducting magnet with your grandmother's ghosts.
Re:Scientists? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, with the proper equipment and training, you could go and mix up a batch of ceramic superconductor and measure it superconducting for yourself. Or measure one of theirs.
It seems highly unlikely that your grandma can describe to me exactly how to go about seeing a ghost whenever I want. If she can, I know where she can get a million dollars.
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Develop one or more of the following:
1. cataracts
2. glaucoma
3. macular degeneration
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A scientist, like any person, can say anything they want. You shouldn't believe something a scientist says just because they say it. They have opinions and can be wrong just like everyone can. I'm sure some scientists say ghosts exist and others say they don't.
Science, on the other hand, can find no evidence of ghosts. That doesn't mean they don't exist, however. Science makes no statement one way or the other on the subject of ghosts. They have never been observed, as far as we know, but could still exist.
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I think we really need tags for content.
Can someone explain to me (Score:2)
How can a material be pressed at 150 gigapascals and still be cool?
I thought that if you put a billion atmospheres of pressure on material, said material would be heated by the pressure. Is that not so?
Inquirin' minds want to know
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Who said that something can't be cooled after it's been heated through pressurization?
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Thanks for the light.
So once pressurized, it is contained in some vessel which is then cooled? Too cool! Literally!
So how do they squeeze it down? In some sense it is a mechanical operation, right?
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At these pressures they most likely compress it with a hydraulic piston.
Re:Can someone explain to me (Score:5, Funny)
That is not so. Changing the pressure will cause a change in temperature in a closed system only. If you also have a cooling apparatus that allows the energy to dissipate then you can have it be any temperature you want, provided your wife doesn't walk by and turn it up again.
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Press it - then cool it.
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To nipick, it's actually just under 1.5M atmospheres.
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The constant pressure isn't what produces the heat, it's the act of compression. You compress it, it heats up, you remove that heat, and now you have high pressure and low temperature.
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http://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.0460... [arxiv.org]
and found some parts very confusing. E.g. in Fig. 1a, sulfur hydride seems to have critical temperature around 70K at 177GPa, and in Fig. 1b, it seems to have critical temperature of 185K at the same pressure. And the "measurements" in Fig. 4 don't look like measurements, they look like data generated using a mathematical function. Dan
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Yeah, there's clearly some issue with that figure. Figure 2b seems to support the claim, though. This draft needs some serious editing. I would never submit something at this rough of a state.
Byebye supercooling, hello pressure containment (Score:2)
A high-temperature superconductor that requires ungodly pressures...kind of defeats the point doesn't it?
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My take is that the theory for most high temperature superconductors is incomplete, which makes it difficult to find even higher temperature superconductors (because we don't know what to look for). In contrast, the superconductivity present in this sample is well understood and thus these results might suggest where to look next.
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I guess at the center of a black hole there is unlimited pressure, but only god knows what goes on inside the event horizon.
super-conductivity = super-resistivity (Score:1)
Take time to read Oliver Heaviside "Electrical Papers" - 1893, you will learn a lot about super conductivity or super-resistivity (as he names it, as he is originator of this concept), as he clearly states the misconceptions widely propagated (in space and as clearly see in time) on this issue.
sulfur hydride vs. hydrogen sulfide... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was trying to figure out why they're referring to "sulfur hydride" instead of "hydrogen sulfide". After I got off our broken public wifi and got the paper to load, I see that sulfur turns metallic above 95 GPa, and apparently hydrogen sulfide at high pressures starts to become metallic as well. In that regime, it probably makes more sense to think of it as a metal hydride, if not an intermetallic compound.
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Wouldn't you? (Score:5, Funny)
At that pressure sulphur hydride just goes "ok ok take my electrons".
what has an angle on this angle (Score:2)
Missing theory (Score:2)
Missing theory (Score:1)
But there are many roads to explore and many ways to seek out room temperature superconductivity.
As with many other discoveries, the stubborn and dedicated researcher will sooner or later find the answer.
We should never be cutting back on research. It is definitely a situation where more is always better than less.
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If observations contradict the theory, then we were ALWAYS in the situation where we did not understand anything. We just didn't realize that we were in that situation -- we "understood" incorrectly.
The next step to enlightenment is realizing that we always understand incorrectly. We aspire to understand well enough -- well enough to make useful predictions, well enough to provide a foundation for further understanding.