Room temperature superconductor FOUND!

[Zatnikitelman]

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news3.19a.html
I can't wait till it starts to seriously get into the industry. This is big news! :speakcool::speakcool:

 

[Artlav]

Not so fast, unfortunately.

(Editor's Note: This is a slightly corrected version of the original story, which intimated that the silicon compound was tested at room temperature. It was not. However, nor was it "supercooled," so it is expected to lead to room-temperature superconductivity in the future.)

A breakthrough nevertheless.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

Darn it, why'd they have to trick me like that?

 

[Urwumpe]

Anyway, it is based on compressed hydrogen gas - I doubt it will reach commercial use quickly. But maybe the phenomena can be reproduced with less critical gases.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

The dude was misquoted which resulted in other sources saying that they had been invented.
http://reducedmass.com/2008/03/22/s...-not-reached-comments-from-researcher-inside/

 

[NukeET]

From the article:

They did indeed achieve this high density hydrogen state in silane, and subsequently detected superconductivity. The temperature they found it to superconduct at was actually 16K (around 280K would be room-temperature), at a pressure of 120 Giga-Pascal, and as Dr. Tse said, ” A good understanding of the mechanism may lead to the design of materials with even higher T_c”.

Apparently they have a lot of work to do before it can be considered "room temperature". Sounds like they will have to find a way to reduce the pressure just a little.

 

[thomasantony]

If they call 16K as "room temperature" I wonder what they call 280K ? . Anyway, many "high-temperature" superconductors known today have critical temperatures much higher than 16K .. even higher than temp. of liq. nitrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconductivity

But they are not so useful as of now as they are mostly ceramics.
~
Thomas