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Scientists Create New Type of Superconductor Wires
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists in Israel have used technology created at a U.S.-funded national research lab to created a new kind of wire spun from sapphire crystals, that is a vastly better conductor than traditional copper wires. The research could have profound implications for renewable energy since much of the generation is in remote locations. It could help bring more electricity from renewable sources to cities."
So, this stuff won't cure cancer, but it might help with renewable energy:
Among the many other possible beneficiaries of the team's new creation that comes to mind would be the hyper-ambitious international DESERTEC organization, which seeks to harvest massive amounts of solar energy in deserts and transmit it to population centers, for example from Africa to Europe.
Except for the small detail that it has to be cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature to act as superconductor and an entire desert transmission line sitting in LN would take a bunch of energy, what's not to like?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'm guessing this does not exhibit the phenomenon known as "superconductivity" and is rather just a low-resistance conductor.
That was my thought, there's no mention of superconductivity in the article, just higher capacity. Plus you've got to keep it bathed in liquid nitrogent. Which isn't bad, it wasn't that long ago that you needed much more expensive coolants, but this isn't a superconductor so it's somewhat moot.
I'm not sure where they got the idea that it's a super conductor when there was no mention at all of resistance.
If your brain is conducting 40 times more electricity than a copper wire of comparable size, please see a doctor immediately.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Electrons on the outside, photons on the inside. Double the bandwidth.
The TAU research team took the project a step farther by combining the fibers with a self-contained cooling system based on liquid nitrogen, which keeps the sapphire wire in a highly efficient superconducting state without overheating.
Even if it needs liquid nitrogen cooling at least nitrogen is abundant unlike helium.
If the cost for cooling per mile/kilometer is less than the profit generated by solar power from a desert region then I can see someone giving it a go. Unfortunately, there isn't any rough costs for doing so in the article.
I wonder if they are using electric blue sapphires?
LN2 temperature superconductor is fantastic for superconductors, LN2 is really easy and cheap, room temp would obviously be much nicer but is a ways away. And from the sound of what they are doing this is actually usable and not ridiculously fragile and rigid and hard to make.
I did notice no mention of publication/article/verification
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better article: http://www.sciencenewsline.com/technology/2011090708160001.html
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
>which can transmit about 40 times more electricity than a copper wire of comparable size they just jam more electrons into the series of tubes
Oh look, a nitwit who thinks he knows something about science.
According to the article, which you didn't both reading before bashing, these wires use legitimate superconductivity. And I don't even know what you think is wrong with the second phrase you quoted. Do you think superconductors actually carry infinite current? They don't.
This news is quite strange. As far as I know sapphire itself is NEVER a superconductor at any temperature. The superconductivity might just come from the "specialized ceramic coating" that is mentioned, since the LN2 temperature superconductors are usually ceramics, so called "high temperature superconductor". The problem of such material is that it is quite brittle and you can never draw a wire with it. I assume the improvement here is how to fabricate such wire with this material.
... covered with High-Tc superconductor film, epitaxially grown. So yes, it would work.
Much better info about this R&D for /. crowd : http://www.rdmag.com/RD100-Awards-Rounding-The-Edges-On-Superconductor-Wires/
Paul B.
I looked into this, and apparently this invention is not about the sapphire itself being superconductive or even conductive- things might be different with the right doping, but ordinarily, a sapphire crystal is a very good electrical resistor. This is about using a precisely crafted sapphire thread as a support for laying down a high temperature superconductor. Known high temperature superconductors, being ceramics, are difficult to make into practical wires, something that has limited their use (for most applications that need superconducting wire, niobium alloys are used, which make fine wire, but these only superconduct under liquid helium temperatures).
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
If your brain is conducting 40 times more electricity than a copper wire of comparable size, please see a doctor immediately.
Dr. Hank McCoy, preferably.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Is there any particular reason the USA is paying for a lab to be built in Israel while, at the same time, people are complaining about how we can't build or innovate anything in the USA?
excellent, i'm very excited. when can I buy a roll of this new wire at home depot?
They have it, but it takes 45 minutes to find someone who knows where it is, and then you have to move 5 boxes of broken ones to find the one unopened box that has it. Then you find out it is a cheap Chinese knockoff made of "Saffire" instead of the sapphire superconductor that you wanted.
I guess it's time to just throw away the gold speaker cables.
See http://www.rdmag.com/RD100-Awards-Rounding-The-Edges-On-Superconductor-Wires/ which I reached via the sapphire outfit's site. The sapphire is a substrate for epitaxial deposition of an unspecified superconductor. It is not the conductor and the story is making more sense now.
As Bernd T. Matthius, the famous physicist, used to say when people touted this or that new superconducting material, "Make me a cable!" Exotic materials that work in the lab often can't be made into a cable of any length or usefulness.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
It could help bring more electricity from renewable sources to cities
It could also help bring more electricity from non-renewable sources to cities. And villages.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Wow, sounds like Maplin's here in the UK. And to thing, their catalogue and store stockrooms used to legendary for their efficiency and range - now if you need a particular resistance or coils you gotta wait a week and if you haven't a debit card - forget it!
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
Like Axis said, it's a lot cheaper if made on site. Also, as I understand it the way superconducting power lines are made(there are a few already), they're made of liquid-proof, but not gas tight highly insulated cables.
As the cable is superconducting, you don't have heat buildup from resistance, so it's all environmental. You simply have enough space around the tubes for the nitrogen to disburse. Nitrogen is non-toxic, though you might want an O2 mask in some circumstances.
As the nitrogen is a liquid, they only need to keep pumping more in as small amounts of it boil off.
I remember an article about it a while back - they were replacing 11 oil cooled power lines with 3 superconducting. The electricity needed to keep the lines cold was projected to be less than what was needed to pump the oil, much less what was lost as heat in the pipes.
I don't read AC A human right
Oddly enough it's probably going to replace aluminum more - while aluminum is less conductive than copper, it's sufficiently cheaper(and lighter) that you can simply pile more on and come up with a cable of larger diameter that actually conducts better for the same cost as a copper wire.
On the other hand, it's sufficiently more of a pain in the butt when it comes to connections* that most home wiring is copper - which I don't think is going to be replaced by a system that uses liquid nitrogen anytime soon.
*Basically the problem is that aluminum also expands more when heated. Combine larger diameter wire that expands and contracts more and you need connectors with better designs than what copper needs. If you only have a couple connections every few miles, that needs to be weather-proof, for large gauge cable, tamper resistant, and capable of massive amounts of current, making them for aluminum isn't a significant additional cost, at least compared to the additional wire cost if you went with copper.
I don't read AC A human right
Or we could - you know - boost the voltage a transformer and transfer the power over small conductors with relatively low losses,
And for longer runs we could use High Voltage DC
But liquid nitrogen and sapphire would work too...
Custom, hands-free Linux installs. Instalinux
If you're running superconducting lines, you can bury them because you don't need to worry about them getting grounded. That means fewer weather related power outages.
So basically the invention is the justification for Monster Cables charging what they do? While concurrently, not providing the absurdly scifi star trek science backed explanations of why they rock, but actual reasons?
I would have never thought it possible in my life time....
where did you find this. everywhere I have looked has claimed it is extremely long single crystalline sapphire strands
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In bulk liquid nitrogen costs less than milk.
Interesting approach, but the linked article is so bad even i had to scratch my head for a few minutes and follow the link to the company to understand it (Sapphire is a nearly perfect insulator, even at low temperatures, what the linked article calls glue seems to be the (epitaxially grown?) HTC SC material).
to address some comments here: the use of liquid nitrogen is not the special thing here. Cables cooled by liquid nitrogen have been in test for a long time.
What i am missing is a comparison to other superconducting cables, so AFAIU:
Normally to make HTC SC wire you grow HTC crystals (a dark art by itself, much like cooking), crush these and press it into a metal band to be able to bend the conductor and you essentially hope that somehoe the grains inside the filaments touch each other (they do). The current is only carried in the surface of the grains anyway and these HTCs are brittle, so you can in principle use a very stable insulator core (like sapphire), grow a thin layer of HTC on it (of which you can control the composition perfectly) and save the effort of providing additional mechanical stability.
where did you find this. everywhere I have looked has claimed it is extremely long single crystalline sapphire strands
You could start with the article:
They are made from single crystals of sapphire strung together and glued in place with a specialized ceramic coating.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
This is only going to make the problem of cable theft even worse! My train is frequently delayed because some selfish numbnut has stolen the signalling/power cables to sell the copper. Imagine what is going to happen when they find out that these cables are made out of sapphires!
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Imagine a wires made out of sapphire. I am not sure they will be financially viable for long distance usage. Copper is getting stolen, imagine safeguarding sapphire wires!!
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
But any advance in this area is a good thing, if you ask me. We don't have enough copper to serve everyone's needs and its Ohm's Law losses are too much to be acceptable in the future.
cheers...ank
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
First, I thought sapphires were less abundant than copper making it much more expensive no matter the process.
But advances in low cost production technologies has changed the equation, making the mass use of such fibers a potential possibility.
Second, I had no idea there was a self-contained liquid nitrogen system that could be applied to the actual wire. Why hasn't this replaced liquid nitrogen stations? Please tell me this is a confusion on the part of the writer.
The TAU research team took the project a step farther by combining the fibers with a self-contained cooling system based on liquid nitrogen, which keeps the sapphire wire in a highly efficient superconducting state without overheating.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Here is a thought. If you lived in Australia, close to both the desert and the ocean, and have the technology listed below; would you become our new OPEC style rich overlords?
1) You are capable of creating glass fiber from sand using solar energy (solar oven).
2) You are able to use the glass as an insulator for superconductive wire.
3) You are capable of using solar energy to create hydrogen from the ocean which then can then be used to super cool the wire.
4) You are able to run the wire on the ocean floor to surrounding Islands and sell electricity.
How hard is it to learn Australian?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I'm not saying you are wrong, I just dont see where you are getting your info from - are just you making assumption without any specific facts to back it up.
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
ok, this older patent for doing the same process to macroscopic sapphire (by the same people) supports your claim.
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
I would point out that sapphire, being Al2O3, (aluminate), should qualify under some translations as "transparent aluminum."
Cool.
So I can see the 1's and 0's clogging up the cable and where to try and unclog it.
That's added value.
Are your ears burning? Someone just talked about you.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2417686&cid=37337828