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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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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.
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?
"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.
Superconductivity can be harnessed for efficient energy transfer. It's a boilerplate that is attached to any research associated with superconductivity to remind the general public whe they're spending millions of dollars on things which aren't available as direct dividends to their lives.
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."
All these elements are yours except Europium. Attempt no superconducting there.
I figure the real benefit from research isn't the discoveries, its the economic benefit of decent, well-paying jobs in a pleasant park-like campus.
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.
>> We'll need billions of tons of the stuff to replace the present wiring infrastructure
Actually, no. To replace a 1cm thick copper cable you do NOT need a 1cm thick superconductor. I'm sure there's limits, but because there's no electrical resistance you can carry HUGE currents through tiny superconductors. We're talking several orders of magnitude difference here.
Anyone have a real numerical comparison handy?
MadCow
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Take that, Americium!
One could've said similar things about semiconductors.
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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Surpsingly complicated, couldn't find any simple practical answers. Sorry. I did find some nifty pictures though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No numbers, but heres a picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CERN-cables-p1030764.jpg
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.
i.e. materials with the property not to conduct *any* electrons, EM radiation or heat in any form.
I think the law of thermodynamics might have a thing or two to say on the subject of that idea.
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.