As I understand it, superconductors work best at temperatures approaching absolute zero (-273.15C). For example, Google tells me that the superconductor in an MRI operates at -269C.
There has been a lot a buzz lately about room temperature (25C) superconductors being discovered, but why is room temperature the focus? Why not focus on superconductors that work in reasonably cold environments? For example, we can easily get temperatures to -15C in a freezer. Why not create superconductors that work in that temperature range rather than 25C?
You aren’t seeing the focus of “science” you are seeing the focus of the news.
There is scientific focus is on all superconductors. This particular one just happens to have made the news because it’s possible it superconducts at room temp which would be ideal. But the real reason this one excites the scientific community is because it uses a completely novel approach and regardless of if this particuar compound works or not, this new approach shows a ton of promise for making new superconductors.
That also doesn’t mean that there isn’t other superconductor research being done elsewhere as well. The global scientific community isn’t one monolithic institution; it is thousands of individual labs all over the world each of which has their focus. Even while this one compound is being studdied there are also a dozen others being studied at the same time. Those studies just dont make the news because marginal gains aren’t as flashy. If a news outlet posted an article about a new metalic superconductor with a critical temp above -196C the average person wouldn’t care even though scientifically speaking that would be a huge deal because that high of a temp means you can cool it with liquid nitrogen instead of liquid helium. News outlets are in the entertainment business now. If the average person won’t find a story interesting then they won’t write it.
Also as it is we already have superconductors that operate well above -269C such as BSCCO which superconducts at -163C which is well above the boiling point of nitrogen. The issue with current “high temp” superconductors like BSCCO is that they are ceramics rather than metalic which means they are poor materials to make wire out of. There is also research being done on making those ceramic superconductors work in applications such as MRI units.
Great points. Thanks for taking the time to type all that out.
For a lot of use cases, they need to be viable completely outside of any containment.
If you create a superconductor that needs -30C to function, you can’t use it in consumer electronics because it would make them too large. If you create a superconductor that needs -10C to function, you can’t use it to transmit power over long distances
Don’t get this wrong though, scientists have been working on finding ANY superconductors in the hope of eventually being able to reach the end goal of a room temperature type. There are still unknown mechanisms that cause super conduction, so any breakthrough usually helps us find more possible candidates.
As a layperson, this was similar to my first thought. Near absolute zero superconductor: works in tightly controlled lab environments. Very Cold superconductor: works in industrial environments (which would be great). Room Temp superconductor: works in consumer grade good (absolutely revolutionary).
Research looks into any and all superconductors all the time. The buzz right now is because a new one was potentially found, and it happens to function at room temperature. Discoveries don’t happen on a schedule. If a superconductor was discovered that functioned at -15C, that would be huge news too as I believe the current warmest ambient pressure superconductor needs -140C to transition.
So instead of trying to get it running at temperatures 300 degrees warmer, just focus on trying to run it about 250 degrees warmer? Should be much easier, right?
Doesn’t it sound a little ridiculous like that?
Even something at -15 would’ve been pretty substantial. The problem is before now, it was super low temps like the MRI you mentioned were just the norm. The fact that this one is potentially room temp one is an even bigger deal. That’s also why you see so many skeptics who doubt that THAT big a leap could happen seemingly over night.
Hell, compared to -296, -15 or 25, that’s room temp either way.
I guess that is sort of what bugs me. Why are we jumping from one extreme to the other instead of figuring out stuff in between first.
It’s not an intentional jump. Most superconductors are extremely impractical for consumer use (and even just cold ones are too realistically) and materials scientists are always just chasing improvements, this one just happens to be a very dramatic one. Popular science is only a small chunk of what’s happening globally.
Again, I say all this under the hopes that the SK guys aren’t full of shit because this would actually be so cool.
Because if you can make one at 25C, why bother with one at -100C?
It’s not a video game tech tree. Scientific progress isn’t linear. We hypothesise, we experiment, and sometimes we get lucky. If it was an engineering problem we could make incremental improvements to the manufacturing process to get small improvements in the results, but it’s not.
Short answer is power lines. Tons of power is lost as heat between the power plant and your home. If they can make a room temp superconductor then every powerline could be replaced with a line that has no losses. This could mean power plants can be smaller and still supply the current power requirements or they could serve more people with the same size power plant which would hopefully bring down electricity prices some since they have more customers.
Because then it wouldn’t be easy to implement and won’t work in consumer electronics. The entire point a room temperature superconductor is exciting is because you don’t have to create a special environment for it to work, which immediately makes it a million times more useful than a superconductor that would work when cold.
Still, LK-99 isn’t confirmed to be a superconductor, we’re still waiting on more tests.
There is a lot of activities around “high temperature supra conductor” high temperature meaning using liquid nitrogen as a cooling fluid. It would already be less a hassle than liquid helium. Some do exists, and the question that interest every industry using supra-conductor is whether the cost saved by switching to liquid nitrogen is worth developing a whole new product with a relatively recent technology.
Room temperature would be a massive breakthrough as suddenly you don’t really need to deal with a cooling system (or may-be a water cooling/fan like any other electric equipment) not only it would ease the life of people aready using super-conducting materials but it would also allow to use it in more cases (Maglev, electric motor)
