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Europium's Superconductivity Demonstrated
gabrlknght writes "An old element just learned a new trick under pressure. When cooled and squeezed very hard, the soft metallic element europium turns into a superconductor, allowing electrons to flow unfettered by resistance, a study appearing May 13 in Physical Review Letters shows. The results make europium the 53rd of the 92 naturally occurring elements to possess superconductivity, which, if harnessed, could make for more efficient energy transfer."
The Carnegie Institution for Science published something like this exactly one year ago today.
Granted, it doesn't mention Europium, but the same principle applies.
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"When cooled and squeezed very hard, the soft metallic element europium turns into a superconductor ... which, if harnessed, could make for more efficient energy transfer."
After factoring in the cost of compressing and cooling a big long cable... In other words, not any time soon.
What, is it French?
80 giga-pascals of pressure? Could be useful for deep-sea power transmission. You only need to go 8000km deep to get that pressure naturally.
"An old element just learned a new trick under pressure"
This is an example of Element abuse! An OLD element, FORCED to learn a new trick, UNDER PRESSURE no doubt!
Stop the madness, leave the poor elements alone, especially the old ones.
We must make sure that no one ever mixes europium with administerium. An EU "unfettered by resistance" could set civilization back a thousand years.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Gee...I got all excited there for a moment. Until I read:
"The results make europium the 53rd of the 92 naturally occurring elements to possess superconductivity"
If the gnomes haven't figured out how to "harness" the magic contained in the OTHER 92 elements that super-conduct, why would this one be any different?
I was quite surprised to read in Wikipedia that the rare earth metals are neither rare nor 'earths' in reality.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
What I don't understand is how does any new discovery almost ALWAYS turn out better than anything that is currently known or in use? Its uncanny.
Its uncanny.
Maybe you should just put it back in the can then, eh?
All these elements are yours except Europium. Attempt no superconducting there.
Just how much energy was used in making the europium more efficient at energy transfer?
The proverbial chicken and egg and perpetual motion machines called, they want their gimmick back.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Simple; because the only new discoveries you HEAR about are the ones that are (at least potentially) better than what we already have.
There are new, mediocre discoveries every day but they're never heard about except in some dusty journal.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Take that, Americium!
All these superconductors are yours, except Europium. Attempt no experiments there.
This is not a high temperature superconductor. It only superconducts under 2 degrees K, when compressed to an extreme degree. It is of academic interest only.
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My old element just learned a new trick under pressure. When rubbed and squeezed very hard, the soft flaccid element turns into a hard superconductor, allowing my little electrons to flow unfettered by resistance.
I didn't know AC was jewish!
Actually that page gets more hits for arab.
It just you, Sergeant Detritus.
I wonder, Europium being quite heavy and with radioactive isotopes, what pressure till you reach critical mass?
How many elements -could- be superconductors but due to their critical mass pressure being lower than their superconductivity pressure, can't be?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Bernd T. Matthias, the famous scientist who worked on superconductivity for many years, would have said, "Make me a cable!". This implies that if the material can't be formed into a wire, you can't do much in the way of practical power transfer. I suspect there isn't enough Europium in the Universe to do anything useful.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Think of Ytterby, Sweden. A village with 3 (three!!!) elements named from it: terbium, erbium and ytterbium ( see here )
Ops, I forgot some more... It seems that Ytterby originated 4-8 names...
Elen sìla lùmenn' omentielvo
From the article: "The researchers then cooled europium down to about 1.8 kelvins (â"271.35Â Celsius), a frigid temperature near absolute zero. At pressures around 80 gigapascals, or about 800,000 times the pressure exerted by the atmosphere at sea level, europium lost its magnetism. Electrons could flow freely through the metal without resistance." The closest thing the average person could conceive (or at least myself) in a) Pressure and b) freeze capability / something involving lasers? would be compactors and liquid nitrogen. I'm still having problems seeing this be generally applied for use. This isn't the first time yet another rare earth element/metal has had to be cooled down (and/or pressurized) to unnatural levels to unlock superconductivity. I thought the goals of such experiments was to figure out how to conventionally utilize superconductivity on a mass scale without the need for highly specific environmental conditions. Since this article also mentions most rare earth metals share this superconductive capability (at near-zero kelvin temperatures and/or massive unnatural Earth pressures), this isn't something new, still.
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.
There are new, mediocre discoveries every day but they're never heard about except in some dusty journal.
That's unfair!
Not every journal published by Elsevier is dusty. Some, like the famous Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, are bright, shiny things...
...oooh! Shiny...
Will
The point is that even if large quantities of electricity could be transmitted, we still would need large amounts of Europium. There simply isn't enough to use in transmission cables. I don't have figures on how rare it is but it is one of the "rare earth minerals". That should give you a clue. Even if enough could be obtained, what is the cost to mine enough. It doesn't sound very cost effective to me.
Sorry, but I bet a lot of other scientists, perhaps a few on this board, are getting sick of science hype, and discoveries that "if" we can really do this, and then "if" we can also do that (no clue how to do that) and a few other ifs, we can change the world in only 5 more years.
Every minor discovery, or in a lot of cases, rediscovery by those who didn't do their homework is endlessly touted as the great new thing, especially in nanotech, but in other fields as well. A recent example is the "discovery" or first "plasma transistor". Too bad for MIT that this was tried and in use by Phillips in the early 50's if not before as a possible low voltage tube for car radios.
Marketing has become more important to an overspecialized science than the science.
The only reason to read the hyped blogs is to find things people have "discovered" but due to overspecialization, don't know what they have.
But they know what they want! More money and time until tenure kicks in, work on the fun stuff with a cute secretary and so on. How many times in a row has fusion been only a couple decades away, and just this one more doubling of money?
I still want my flying car, and fusion and so on.
Looks like the best way is to get rich and fund these on your own, you might get results if you fired the losers.
There is a typo in the summary. 53rd element is Iodine, but Europium is 63rd.