xpost from https://lemmy.world/post/2494271
Researchers have discovered a new compound called LK-99 that could enable the fabrication of room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductors. Two separate sources have provided very preliminary confirmations of this breakthrough, including a simulation indicating it could be possible and a short video from Chinese researchers that seems to indicate some properties of superconductivity.
Well you know about all those fancy battery technologies you’ve seen in the news? Some of those are already 30 years old by now and they are still stuck in the lab whereas Li-ion actually became a product. There has got to be a good reason why that happened. Maybe the technology was too expensive, too fragile, or maybe there was another drawback the article never mentioned. Same kinds of challenges face superconductors, graphene and fusion. That’s why we have these headlines periodically.
Sure, but the first room temperature superconductor would be a discovery in a way that alternate forms of batteries aren’t. At the very least it would be revolutionary in our practical understanding of room temperature superconductors, even if it wasn’t practically useable. Though it would also be revolutionary in the sense that nothing else could substitute for it, something that isn’t the case with batteries.