I missed this story. Graphite doped with water superconducts? Well, maybe. There are several tests for superconductivity and so far the material hasn't been tested to see if it repels magnetic fields or really-and-truly conducts with 0 resistance. Instead it passes a more esoteric test, which is related to but may not guarantee the rest of them--which are the ones we're interested in.
Trying to make a wire out of doped graphite is going to be an interesting exercise. Maybe baking can fuse flakes together--but then you may change the molecular structure that gives it the (for the purposes of argument) "superconductivity."
I have a highschool friend who started in ceramics and superconductivity (MIT, then AT&T until it was broken up), but it was well beyond me. We would talk hiking and baseball instead.
ReplyDeleteI'll ask what he thinks - maybe I'll follow it now.
If it pans out, it would be a wonderful start--but what a terrible material to try to make things out of! And "doped with water" suggests that it has to be kept sealed somehow.
ReplyDelete