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Scientists Create Room Temperature Superconductor
StarEmperor writes "A team of Canadian and German scientists have fabricated a room-temperature superconductor, using a highly compressed silicon-hydrogen compound. According to the article,"The researchers claim that the new material could sidestep the cooling requirement, thereby enabling superconducting wires that work at room temperature.""
So, how exactly is this a good alternative to colder superconductors? Pressure is often more expensive to safely maintain. Not to mention the fact that SiH4 autoignites at room temperature.
NOPE. Do not pass Go Do not collect $200.
"Instead of super-cooling the material, as is necessary for conventional superconductors, the new material is instead super-compressed. The researchers claim that the new material could sidestep the cooling requirement, thereby enabling superconducting wires that work at room temperature."
Rats. Though at least hypothetically, it seems like it would be easier to design a containment for a high-pressure superconductor that requires minimal energy to maintain versus a low-pressure one. You can design a pressure vessel such that the pressure only escapes via small known locations (any valve or seal), whereas cold always escapes in all directions. So there still may be practical advantages to this discovery.
Though in any event characterizing the behavior of high-pressure materials is valuable.
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I'm holding TFA (Science, 14 March 2008, pp. 1506-1509). The highest critical temperatures they observed, regardless of pressure, were around 17 Kelvin (between 96-120 GPa). These are interesting results because they are among the few measurements available to shed light on the behavior of dense hydrides at these pressures, and these materials might, if better understood, one day allow a room temperature superconductor to be made. This, however, is not it.
Oh how good life would be if we only needed to reach fairbanks temperatures for superconductivity.
(Current best is a little worse than -300F, and fairbanks is not quite so cold, with a record of -66F).
So if they invented a room temperature superconductor, the world would in fact be quite thrilled at such a major breakthrough.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Silane explodes with considerable violence on exposure to air.
The best part? It's only *mostly* pyrophoric in air. *Sometimes* it waits a little while and accumulates a nice big cloud first, rather than flaring the instant it starts leaking.
Cold is not a thing, it is the absence of something (heat). Heat, on the other hand, exists, and enters from all directions.
High voltage is already 'transmitted' in pressurized bus work. The bus work is pressurized with SF6 gas and is regularly used with voltages up to 500kV. This is common in Transformer Stations and other high voltage equipment (breakers, etc). You can come within 3' of a 500kV bus that's pressurized in SF6 (you can theoretically touch the outside of the bus work too, but I wouldn't). Unfortunately it's not economically feasible to do this over long distances. SF6 in itself is not toxic to humans, although it has a nasty habit of displacing all the oxygen in your vicinity. The by-products created when electrical arc occur within the SF6 gas are extremely toxic.
Actually, it is quite hard to cool things in space, if they generate any kind of heat. You can only radiate heat away - conduction and convection won't help you.
Heat is not a thing. Thermal Energy, on the other hand, exists, and dissipates in all directions. (Heat is defined as the dissipation of thermal energy)
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
The more is that the researchers have shown that silane turns into a metal at very high pressures; while researchers have not managed to create metallic hydrogen, they have managed this. The less is that it's only a 17-degree Kelvin superconductor--not an extraordinary temperature--and the pressures involved are on the order of half a million atmospheres.
The original article was published in Science on 14 March 2008; Vol. 319. no. 5869, pp. 1506 - 1509; DOI: 10.1126/science.1153282. Your local library can probably get you a copy; if you are at a university you may be able to access the online version.
The story I read said 50GPa. Which is around 7-8 MILLION PSI. We're talking a whole boatload of pressure here. 50GPa is the minimum, the superconductivity is maintained at higher temperatures at around 120GPa (or 20 million psi).