Archive for category Superconductors

SUPRAPOWER Project to Develop Superconductor Wind Turbines for EU

Posted by Mike Sandru in Superconductors, Wind Power on April 27, 2013

Despite the clean energy provided by wind turbines, they remain expensive to build and install, especially the offshore type. To help reduce this cost, the EU together with nine more companies and science groups and led by Spain’s Tecnalia, have unveiled a project to develop superconductor technology for wind turbines. The entire project is to [...]

Solar Cells and Supercapacitors Improved by New 3D Germanium Sulfide Nanostructure

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Solar Power, Superconductors on February 22, 2013

Next-generation supercapacitors and solar cells could be improved by a newly-created germanium sulfide (GeS) nanomaterial resembling a shish-kebab. North Carolina State University researchers put up a three-dimensional structure that consists of multiple bi-dimensional nanosheets impaled by a one-dimensional nanowire of germanium sulfide. To create the heterosurface, the researchers begin by creating the nanowire 100 nanometers [...]

Superconductor Resistivity Reduced by New Discovery

Posted by Mila Luleva in Superconductors on February 16, 2013

An international team of researchers from Russia, Spain, Belgium, the U.K. and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has discovered groundbreaking applications of superconductivity. The study appeared in Nature Communications last week. They were able to establish how to stabilize efficiently tiny magnetic vortices, which interfere with superconductivity. This problem has been [...]

Uranium-Based Material Could Lead to Better Superconductors

Posted by Benji Jerew in Superconductors on February 1, 2013

Mention uranium, and you may think of two applications right off the bat, nuclear power generation and atomic weapons. These two things may bring some problems to mind, such as nuclear meltdown, fallout, and winter. Physicists, on the other hand, don’t see things quite so dismally, and continue to experiment with uranium for more benign [...]

Breakthrough Iron-Based Superconductors Pave the Way for Energy-Intensive Technologies

Posted by Leigh Kim in Superconductors on January 12, 2013

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists have developed an iron-based high performance superconducting wire, paving the way for some of the most energy-intensive technologies in the world. Scientists were able to grow custom materials that are able to carry very high current under very high magnetic fields, not unlike those found [...]

Superconductors Could Increase Wind Turbine Efficiency

Posted by Benji Jerew in Superconductors, Wind Power on January 8, 2013

One of the great limitations in any electrical or electronic system is resistance. Electrical resistance, measured in “Ω” or ohms, is not a constant, but dependent on temperature. As the temperature increases, resistance also increases. When considering wind turbine generators, there are limits to the amount of electricity can be generated. The problem is that [...]

Superconducting Generators Increase Wind Power Plant Efficiency

Posted by Leigh Kim in Superconductors, Wind Power on January 6, 2013

Experts believe that wind power will be the key in the quest for alternative energy solutions. After years of research, scientists have determined that adding superconductors to generators will increase the performance and generate 10 megawatts while also reducing the weight and size of the generator. Superconducting generators also use a fraction of the globes’ [...]

Atom Cooling Leads to Greater Understanding of Superconductors

Posted by Leigh Kim in Superconductors on December 14, 2012

The processes that occur when atoms cool have long eluded scientists. However, a team of researchers at The Open University believe they have developed a method to understand more about the specifics of atom cooling and hope this may one day be used to more sophisticated superconductors. A superconductor is a material with no electrical [...]

Superconducting Wire Generates and Transports Electricity, Wins Additional Funding

Posted by Mila Luleva in Superconductors on December 9, 2012

As part of a wind energy project, a superconducting wire that can generate and transport electricity brought to a team of engineering researchers at University of Huston, the massive $900,000 additional funding from the US Department of Energy (DOE). In addition, the project was given $ 1 million grant extension totaling up the award to [...]

Swiss High-Temperature Superconductor Discovery Could Change The Grid Forever

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Superconductors on September 6, 2012

A team of researchers from EPFL’s Laboratory for Quantum Magnetism could change the way people transmit electricity and the efficiency of the process. Their study on how extremely small particles act in conjunction with magnetism may give other physicists a clue on how to build high-temperature superconductors. By creating a layer of ceramic material just [...]

SMES: New Energy Storing Technology by ABB Using Electromagnetic Fields and Superconductivity

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Energy Storage, Magnetic Power, Superconductors on March 10, 2011

ABB, a Swiss-based engineering company, has presented a prototype of their innovative superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES), at a DOE ARPA-E conference which took place in Washigton D.C. at the beginning of this month. Their 3.3 kWh proof-of-concept SMES is not very cost-effective for the moment, but may one day provide cleaner storage solutions for excess alternative energy.

Scientists Explain Limitations of High Temperature Superconductors in High Currents

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Superconductors on June 28, 2010

Since their discovery in late 1980s, superconductors were thought to revolutionize everything that had an electric current flowing, but allowing it to pass through more easily, and with much less heat produced. Ultra-efficient magnetic trains had been envisioned, then, but …

Scientists Discover Nano-Scale Superconducting Material

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Superconductors on June 15, 2010

Researchers from the Bar-Ilan University in Israel, collaborating with the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the U.S. have designed superconducting thin films patterned with large arrays of nanowires and loops. The temperature at which they superconduct is pretty low and hard to get for the moment – only 30 °K (-243°C). Magnetic fields have proved themselves to change the material’s electrical resistance in an unexpected manner.

Molecular-Level Superconducting Material Discovered by Ohio Scientists

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Superconductors on April 5, 2010

A sheet less than a nanometer wide and four pairs of molecules now constitutes the world’s smallest superconductor and proves that superconducting nanoscale materials can be made, an obvious advance for nano-scaled electronics and energy applications.

New Research Showing Fabrication Pattern for Higher-Temperature Superconductors

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Superconductors on March 19, 2010

Researchers from Princeton University, Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry in Japan, using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, have discovered how in a superconducting material, at a nano-scale level, regions with stronger superconductivity helped regions with weaker superconductivity survive when exposed to higher temperature.