- #1
jay.yoon314
- 22
- 0
"Invention" Idea - Cheap Room-Temperature Superconductors Now?
I propose that if you encase a superconducting material along with liquid helium (or some other coolant) inside a Dewar flask or Thermos and then insert liquid helium, and then cool the superconductor+liquid helium once down to below its critical temperature, it will sustain that subcritical temperature without any further energy inputs. In essence, continuous cooling is not required as long as the insulation that isolates the superconducting material from its ambient environment is very good. Dewar flasks that are currently manufactured are good enough insulators for everyday and typical commercial uses, but they still slowly leak in or out heat. But most of the heat is lost or gained through the cap and the neck.
However, if one is using a Dewar flask to cool a superconductor, it is not necessary to have to even open or close the flask (although it wouldn't hurt either), since it will be manufactured with the single purpose of creating a highly insulating environment for the superconductor. If there is no reason to have to remove the superconductor from the flask, and insert some new object, then it is not necessary to even have the neck and cap that are responsible for the the great majority of heat transfer in a Dewar flask.
I hypothesize that a Dewar flask that is specially engineered to never be opened can be engineered to not have a neck/cap region that is much poorer at insulation than the remainder of the flask’s surface. If the insulation can be made as good as it is on the Dewar flask’s “good insulation” portion on the entire surface of the flask, I think it’s possible to insulate a superconductor’s local environment in such a way that its temperature increases so slowly that it can have a shelf-life of at least 10-20 years before it needs to be “replaced.”
If this process is viable, are commercially viable superconductors still a technology of the future? I understand that if the conductor needs to be cooled throughout its entire operating time, that the costs would be significant at least and excessive at best, but if it was insulated so well that it remained below the critical temperature for a century by a one-time cooling at the time of manufacture, that would eliminate a great deal of the variable costs. There seems to be no limit, at least in principle, to the quality of an insulator, even though there is no such thing as a perfect insulator.
Moreover, it is a fact that a superconductor, which has exactly zero resistance (there are some types of superconductors for which this is not exactly true), when coupled with a enclosed shell/tube/etc. that has almost zero thermal conductivity, the superconductor’s operation will not generate any additional heat other than the almost zero heat flow from the environment, provided that it is below its critical temperature. Again, this is unlike a regular conductor which would also generate waste heat on top of any heat flux from the environment so that even if you could encase the conductor in a perfect (and nonexistent) heat insulator, its own operation would generate waste heat. T
The great thing about superconductors is that by minimizing one source of waste heat, you completely eliminate the other source, literally to zero. It’s somewhat like if you insulated your home really well with respect to the internal environment and cooled it down, all of the wiring inside your home would no longer generate heat either – “for free.” Then, the lifespan of the superconductor, commercially speaking, would be limited only by how close to zero you could get that heat conductivity to be.
Is this already the process by which present superconductors are cooled below their critical temperature? I wasn’t sure, because I’ve read from many sources that double-layered metallic encasings are used with vacuum in between to minimize heat loss (i.e. in presently existing MRI machines and in the utilities industry), but also that the cooling process, nevertheless, requires a continuous input of energy rather than my idea which entails a one-time cooling, and hence a reduction of variable costs to fixed costs. Is this distinction between “continuous” and “one-time” cooling even of any significance? Most importantly, can insulation that lasts on the order of many human generations be constructed at a reasonable price?
Thanks very much.
I propose that if you encase a superconducting material along with liquid helium (or some other coolant) inside a Dewar flask or Thermos and then insert liquid helium, and then cool the superconductor+liquid helium once down to below its critical temperature, it will sustain that subcritical temperature without any further energy inputs. In essence, continuous cooling is not required as long as the insulation that isolates the superconducting material from its ambient environment is very good. Dewar flasks that are currently manufactured are good enough insulators for everyday and typical commercial uses, but they still slowly leak in or out heat. But most of the heat is lost or gained through the cap and the neck.
However, if one is using a Dewar flask to cool a superconductor, it is not necessary to have to even open or close the flask (although it wouldn't hurt either), since it will be manufactured with the single purpose of creating a highly insulating environment for the superconductor. If there is no reason to have to remove the superconductor from the flask, and insert some new object, then it is not necessary to even have the neck and cap that are responsible for the the great majority of heat transfer in a Dewar flask.
I hypothesize that a Dewar flask that is specially engineered to never be opened can be engineered to not have a neck/cap region that is much poorer at insulation than the remainder of the flask’s surface. If the insulation can be made as good as it is on the Dewar flask’s “good insulation” portion on the entire surface of the flask, I think it’s possible to insulate a superconductor’s local environment in such a way that its temperature increases so slowly that it can have a shelf-life of at least 10-20 years before it needs to be “replaced.”
If this process is viable, are commercially viable superconductors still a technology of the future? I understand that if the conductor needs to be cooled throughout its entire operating time, that the costs would be significant at least and excessive at best, but if it was insulated so well that it remained below the critical temperature for a century by a one-time cooling at the time of manufacture, that would eliminate a great deal of the variable costs. There seems to be no limit, at least in principle, to the quality of an insulator, even though there is no such thing as a perfect insulator.
Moreover, it is a fact that a superconductor, which has exactly zero resistance (there are some types of superconductors for which this is not exactly true), when coupled with a enclosed shell/tube/etc. that has almost zero thermal conductivity, the superconductor’s operation will not generate any additional heat other than the almost zero heat flow from the environment, provided that it is below its critical temperature. Again, this is unlike a regular conductor which would also generate waste heat on top of any heat flux from the environment so that even if you could encase the conductor in a perfect (and nonexistent) heat insulator, its own operation would generate waste heat. T
The great thing about superconductors is that by minimizing one source of waste heat, you completely eliminate the other source, literally to zero. It’s somewhat like if you insulated your home really well with respect to the internal environment and cooled it down, all of the wiring inside your home would no longer generate heat either – “for free.” Then, the lifespan of the superconductor, commercially speaking, would be limited only by how close to zero you could get that heat conductivity to be.
Is this already the process by which present superconductors are cooled below their critical temperature? I wasn’t sure, because I’ve read from many sources that double-layered metallic encasings are used with vacuum in between to minimize heat loss (i.e. in presently existing MRI machines and in the utilities industry), but also that the cooling process, nevertheless, requires a continuous input of energy rather than my idea which entails a one-time cooling, and hence a reduction of variable costs to fixed costs. Is this distinction between “continuous” and “one-time” cooling even of any significance? Most importantly, can insulation that lasts on the order of many human generations be constructed at a reasonable price?
Thanks very much.
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