4 ms·

Why can’t liquid nitrogen SC used for creating MRI?

• cthalupa 3y ago
  Superconductors also have points where they stop superconducting because of the strength of the magnetic field or amount of current. YBCO and similar have these points below the useful level for MRIs. There's research around finding ways to use them but nothing that is currently viable.
  • maccam94 3y ago
    Wait, Commonwealth Fusion Systems is already building 20T REBCO magnets, can't those meet the requirements for MRIs?
    • cthalupa 3y ago
      You're right - for whatever reason I had convinced myself YBCO had issues with both high current and high field. It's just high current - anything outside of a single grain has low current density. Doing some more research to help make up for my spreading of incorrect info, I did stumble across this - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5472374/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5472374/ - it seems like it's a variety of factors that make most HST not really commercially viable for MRI machines at current. Mitsubishi has even made a small scale MRI machine with HTS - https://www.medicaldesignandoutsourcing.com/worlds-first-3-tesla-mri-with-high-temperature-coils/ https://www.medicaldesignandoutsourcing.com/worlds-first-3-t... - though I can't find any newer details around it, despite the timeline provided in the article.
      • ralfd 3y ago
        Philips has this press release about researching high temperature MRI from 2022: https://www.usa.philips.com/a-w/about/news/archive/standard/news/press/2022/20221130-philips-signs-research-agreement-to-explore-new-magnet-technologies.html https://www.usa.philips.com/a-w/about/news/archive/standard/... I guess the need is somewhat alleviated by using MRI which seal their helium: https://www.usa.philips.com/healthcare/resources/landing/the-next-mr-wave/sealed-mr-technology https://www.usa.philips.com/healthcare/resources/landing/the...