Scientists claim to have achieved a holy grail of energy research, saying they’ve created a room-temperature superconductor that works at ambient pressures and represents “a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind.”
The study, which has NOT been peer-reviewed yet.
Superconductors that work at room temperature and pressure!
A superconductor is a material that does not lose any electricity to resistance when it is passed through it, in contrast to just about every other material in existence. Replacing copper wiring with a superconductor would make humanity’s electricity use radically more efficient, for example. Superconductors could power quantum computers, make maglev trains more widespread and feasible, and make MRI machines (which already use superconductors) cheaper.
The problem is that, so far, superconductors require extremely low temperatures or high pressures to work, limiting their widespread application. Hence the search for a room-temperature superconductor that works at ambient pressures, which the new research claims to have discovered in a new substance called LK-99.
The paper—authored by Korean scientists Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim from the Quantum Energy Research Centre, and Young-Wan Kwon from the KU-KIST Graduate School of Converging Science and Technology—claims to report the creation of LK-99 by mixing lankarite and copper phosphide with a mortar and pestle and creating an ingot. They report that LK-99 expresses all the hallmarks of a superconductor at room temperature, including the so-called Meissner effect, which is when a superconductor levitates when placed on a magnet.
Without peer review or replications, no one knows if room-temperature superconductors recent paper is a breakthrough or a false-hope.
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