5 ms·

What are super conductors used for? I say this as Im fairly certain we arent solely looking for a more efficient way to transfer electricity.

sgt101 7y ago
High powered magnets - these will improve scanners (see comment below), turbines, motors, generators. YBCO superconductors can be fabricated into a flexible tape which is then useful for creating these kind of devices, but YBCO needs to be cooled with liquid nitrogen.
Bjartr 7y ago
Current power transmission losses can be between 8%-15%, cutting those to 0 would be a pretty big deal. https://blog.schneider-electric.com/energy-management-energy-efficiency/2013/03/25/how-big-are-power-line-losses/ https://blog.schneider-electric.com/energy-management-energy...
mlevental 7y ago
well you're not wrong but a room tc superconductor would indeed enable us to cut down on transmission costs of power. I'm not sure if this is obvious but the only reason national powergrids are AC and not DC is because you can step down AC current and therefore have much lower heat dissipation through the transmission lines. So at the minimum you'd get cheaper power by eliminating all the resistive losses and stepper circuits . But also superconductors are used in MRI machines where right now they're kept below Tc using liquid nitrogen, which is hard to control (search MRI quenching). So room temp superconductors would make MRIs cheaper, which would be a boon to the developing world.
- amper5and 7y ago
  Most MR units these days use liquid helium not liquid nitrogen. And there is at least one cryogen free unit on the market right now, though it’s definitely not the kind (open, 0.5T) you’d use to replace most hospital magnets.
- wl 7y ago
  A superconductor suitable for use in an electromagnet that could be cooled with liquid nitrogen alone would be practically "room temperature" as far as these things go. Liquid nitrogen is cheap and abundant, as opposed to liquid helium which is required to get down to 4 K. As stands at the moment, some older MRIs use liquid nitrogen to help insulate liquid helium. Newer machines use liquid helium alone.
  - mrfusion 7y ago
    Doesn’t rebco tape use liquid nitrogen?
    - wl 7y ago
      It's been awhile since I've paid attention to the field, so apologies if I get this wrong. I was under the impression that cuprate superconductors were unsuitable for use in MRI magnets because they only superconduct across clusters of microdomains, making it impossible (at least with current technology) to generate the large, strong, and uniform field necessary for the application. There seems to be ongoing research into producing suitable magnets with cuprates, but I don't know if the problem has been solved yet. In any case, there are no commercially available MRI machines that use cuprate superconductors.
chongli 7y ago
Superconductors can be used to build ultra-powerful electromagnets. These are what you'll find in particle accelerators and experimental fusion reactors (tokamaks) as well as MRI machines. All of these devices are extremely large and very expensive, partly because of the equipment used to maintain them at cryogenic temperatures. If you could build a room temperature superconductor, you could shrink these machines and reduce their cost and complexity by a large amount. Additionally, you would open up new applications for superconducting magnets, such as maglev trains. As others have said, reducing electrical transmission losses is another huge benefit. It's only the beginning of the potential applications of room temperature superconductors though.
dekhn 7y ago
Our NMR machine that was used for discovering the structure of biomolecules had a superconducting magnet. The whole machine was pretty impressive (massive steel chamber filled with cryo-cooled magnetic coils). You'd "inject" current once in a while and it would swirl around for weeks/months at a time.
Junk_Collector 7y ago
Novel magnetic effects, efficient power transfer, some special forms of supercomputers. Room temp super-conductors would change the world in interesting ways assuming of course that they could also be manufactured at scale. Most importantly it would require an unlocking of fundamental properties in electromagnetism, chemistry, and quantum physics that as of today is still very much unknown.
raducu 7y ago
You could have a world-wide power grid; you could power all humanity's energy needs by having a couple of "tiny" (100kmX100km) solar farms spread between world deserts located on different timezones so you won't need any storage.
SigmundA 7y ago
Using for energy storage would be a big deal see superconductive storage rings. Potentially the holy grail of batteries.

sgt101 7y ago

High powered magnets - these will improve scanners (see comment below), turbines, motors, generators. YBCO superconductors can be fabricated into a flexible tape which is then useful for creating these kind of devices, but YBCO needs to be cooled with liquid nitrogen.

Bjartr 7y ago

Current power transmission losses can be between 8%-15%, cutting those to 0 would be a pretty big deal. https://blog.schneider-electric.com/energy-management-energy-efficiency/2013/03/25/how-big-are-power-line-losses/ https://blog.schneider-electric.com/energy-management-energy...

mlevental 7y ago

well you're not wrong but a room tc superconductor would indeed enable us to cut down on transmission costs of power. I'm not sure if this is obvious but the only reason national powergrids are AC and not DC is because you can step down AC current and therefore have much lower heat dissipation through the transmission lines. So at the minimum you'd get cheaper power by eliminating all the resistive losses and stepper circuits . But also superconductors are used in MRI machines where right now they're kept below Tc using liquid nitrogen, which is hard to control (search MRI quenching). So room temp superconductors would make MRIs cheaper, which would be a boon to the developing world.

amper5and 7y ago
Most MR units these days use liquid helium not liquid nitrogen. And there is at least one cryogen free unit on the market right now, though it’s definitely not the kind (open, 0.5T) you’d use to replace most hospital magnets.
wl 7y ago
A superconductor suitable for use in an electromagnet that could be cooled with liquid nitrogen alone would be practically "room temperature" as far as these things go. Liquid nitrogen is cheap and abundant, as opposed to liquid helium which is required to get down to 4 K. As stands at the moment, some older MRIs use liquid nitrogen to help insulate liquid helium. Newer machines use liquid helium alone.
- mrfusion 7y ago
  Doesn’t rebco tape use liquid nitrogen?
  - wl 7y ago
    It's been awhile since I've paid attention to the field, so apologies if I get this wrong. I was under the impression that cuprate superconductors were unsuitable for use in MRI magnets because they only superconduct across clusters of microdomains, making it impossible (at least with current technology) to generate the large, strong, and uniform field necessary for the application. There seems to be ongoing research into producing suitable magnets with cuprates, but I don't know if the problem has been solved yet. In any case, there are no commercially available MRI machines that use cuprate superconductors.

chongli 7y ago

Superconductors can be used to build ultra-powerful electromagnets. These are what you'll find in particle accelerators and experimental fusion reactors (tokamaks) as well as MRI machines. All of these devices are extremely large and very expensive, partly because of the equipment used to maintain them at cryogenic temperatures. If you could build a room temperature superconductor, you could shrink these machines and reduce their cost and complexity by a large amount. Additionally, you would open up new applications for superconducting magnets, such as maglev trains. As others have said, reducing electrical transmission losses is another huge benefit. It's only the beginning of the potential applications of room temperature superconductors though.

dekhn 7y ago

Our NMR machine that was used for discovering the structure of biomolecules had a superconducting magnet. The whole machine was pretty impressive (massive steel chamber filled with cryo-cooled magnetic coils). You'd "inject" current once in a while and it would swirl around for weeks/months at a time.

Junk_Collector 7y ago

Novel magnetic effects, efficient power transfer, some special forms of supercomputers. Room temp super-conductors would change the world in interesting ways assuming of course that they could also be manufactured at scale. Most importantly it would require an unlocking of fundamental properties in electromagnetism, chemistry, and quantum physics that as of today is still very much unknown.

raducu 7y ago

You could have a world-wide power grid; you could power all humanity's energy needs by having a couple of "tiny" (100kmX100km) solar farms spread between world deserts located on different timezones so you won't need any storage.

SigmundA 7y ago

Using for energy storage would be a big deal see superconductive storage rings. Potentially the holy grail of batteries.