The science world is buzzing over LK-99.
That’s a material that could revolutionize the world.
“For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the
room-temperature superconductor,” a pre-print paper published this week by Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim and Young-Wan Kwon says.
What’s more, the material isn’t made from obscure elements or nanotubes, it’s easy to create and works at ambient pressures.
A room temperature superconductor — a material with zero resistance — is the holy grail of materials science, it would unlock incredible applications in energy, batteries, electronics, computer chips, motor efficiency, mag trains, nuclear power, health technology and quantum computing.
Video still of LK-99 showing the Meissner effect
To simplify: All the excess heat in electronics is due to resistance in materials like copper, which are imperfect conductors. A room temperature superconductor would eliminate all of that, making things from transmission lines, to motors capable of perfect efficiency. Power could be stored in coils indefinitely, ready to discharge, revolutionizing batteries — lightning in a bottle.
This breakthough would hyper-accelerate the green transition but also unlock problematic science problems. A big one is in the nuclear space where superconductivity outside of extreme temperatures would be a game changer.
Motors are also powered by magnetic fields and with superconductors they would get smaller, more powerful and more efficient, perhaps by orders of magnitude.
In short, this could be the biggest scientific breakthrough since nuclear weapons.
The catch? People are skeptical of the claim, especially scientists familiar with the area. Superconductor breakthroughs have been purported many times and scientists have been toiling away at them for 100 years. This could be another sham.
The thing is, we could know as soon as this weekend. Since the paper’s publication, scientists have been scrambling to get the materials — lead, oxygen, sulfur, phosphorus and a high-temperature furnace — to replicate it.
For the first time in the world, researchers succeeded in synthesizing a room-temperature superconductor (Tc≥400 K, 127°C) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure
[full paper: https://t.co/1kNB4GT8ut]pic.twitter.com/1N4ogvaMPA
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) July 26, 2023
Since it’s not hard to build or replicate, we could find out as soon as this weekend if this breakthrough is legitimate (here is someone doing it). Others though say that the researchers — who are corporate and working with the help of a university professor for publication — could be holding back some part of the process.