Room temperature superconductors

billvon

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One of the holy grails in science is the room temperature superconductor. It's important because a superconductor transmits both heat and electrical power with zero loss, which would make motors, transmission lines, heat pipes etc far more efficient and practical.

For a long time metals had to be at liquid helium temperatures to exhibit superconductivity. Then they discovered ceramics which exhibited superconductivity at -135C. Which is still really cold, but you can get to that with liquid nitrogen which is MUCH easier to create and handle than liquid helium.

Today they announced a material - a lanthanum hydride - which is a superconductor up to -23C, which is a cold day in Canada. They have even seen some signs that it may be superconducting up to 7C, which we saw last night here in San Diego. It needs to be under tremendous pressure (170GPa, about 24 million PSI) but it's a lot easier to maintain pressure than temperature.

This is the first time that a material in "normal" temperatures (i.e. temperatures people regularly see) has exhibited superconductivity, and paves the way for much more efficient power lines, motors and electrical devices. It's a long way from here to more efficient bike motors, but it's definitely getting there.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-hydrogen-rich-compound-may-be-record-breaking-superconductor
 
Wait,
" tremendous pressure (170GPa, about 24 million PSI)"
A couple thousand PSI is dangerous-
At any million PSI,
I don't want to be in the same state as.
That is crazy

just
sayn
 
Think more of one solid material held in a highly compressed state with an outer sleeve of another solid material than a waiting-to-violently-explode compressed gas.
 
Punx0r said:
Think more of one solid material held in a highly compressed state with an outer sleeve of another solid material than a waiting-to-violently-explode compressed gas.
Exactly. And as research continues, the required pressure will drop.
 
Bill,

Where did you find the info that superconductors also have great thermal conductivity coefficients? Some quick research indicates that the opposite is true for know superconductors, ie they're good thermal insulators. Whether or not it's a good thermal conductor isn't important though, since a room temp superconductor will be a game changer for our purposes with virtually no heat from copper losses in our motors, batteries, and wiring.
 
John in CR said:
Where did you find the info that superconductors also have great thermal conductivity coefficients?
An article in Nature a while back talking about thermal conductivity in ceramic high temperature superconductors. But this is a metallic hydride rather than a ceramic, so that doesn't necessarily apply. My mistake.
 
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