LK-99 Room Temp Ambient Pressure Superconductor

[Shpaget]

South Korean researchers published a non peer reviewed article regarding a room temp (actually 127°C) ambient pressure superconductor. To make it better, it is also claimed to be very easy to produce in lab from mundane materials.

Of course, if this is legit, it will be extremely interesting, bringing a fundamental change to quite a few fields (not power distribution, though, since it's a ceramic, so not suitable for making wires)

That being said, there are a few red flags and indications that this may not be as initially presented. Buyer beware.

https://qcentre.co.kr/lk-99

[farmerben]

Does it need to be under high pressure?

[darthgently]

10 minutes ago, farmerben said:

Does it need to be under high pressure?

I think it is the same paper Steve posted a link to in which case they claim "ambient pressures" but no numbers that I saw skimming.  They seem to claim that the internal pressures increase in the material when current flows through, but still no numbers that I saw.  I'm quite a bit skeptical but it is over my head mostly and look forward to other researchers sorting it out soon

[Exoscientist]

14 hours ago, Shpaget said:

South Korean researchers published a non peer reviewed article regarding a room temp (actually 127°C) ambient pressure superconductor. To make it better, it is also claimed to be very easy to produce in lab from mundane materials.

Of course, if this is legit, it will be extremely interesting, bringing a fundamental change to quite a few fields (not power distribution, though, since it's a ceramic, so not suitable for making wires)

That being said, there are a few red flags and indications that this may not be as initially presented. Buyer beware.

https://qcentre.co.kr/lk-99

 Link says “blocked due to high traffic”.

After a web search, I found a nice description by Brian Wang on his site NextBigFuture.com:

Possibly the Beginning of Quantum Well Superconductors.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/07/the-beginning-of-quantum-well-superconductors.html

  He quotes a review article by PhD chemist Derek Lowe on the Science Magazine site:

IN THE PIPELINE CHEMICAL NEWS
Breaking Superconductor News
26 JUL 2023 BY DEREK LOWE
Possibly the Beginning of Quantum Well Superconductors.
The authors believe that the modified/strained structure of their material creates a large number of “quantum wells” between particular lead atoms and the adjacent oxygens of the phosphate groups bound to them, in effect making a two-dimensional “electron gas”. They propose that electron tunneling between these quantum wells, which are between 3.7 and 6.5 Ångstroms apart, is the superconducting mechanism. The authors are making a detailed mechanistic claim that is subject to experimental proof.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/breaking-superconductor-news

 This is a mechanism that can be checked by other researchers.

   Robert Clark

[Gargamel]

Smells a lot like the cold fusion announcement.     I’ll wait for peer review. 

[darthgently]

7 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

Smells a lot like the cold fusion announcement.     I’ll wait for peer review. 

Peer review and reputable replications even

[lajoswinkler]

Same researcher already had one retraction after bad paper. For now it seems he's making the same shoddy attempt.

https://www.science.org/content/article/spectacular-superconductor-claim-making-news-here-s-why-experts-are-doubtful

[steve9728]

I saw some guys from different labs and unis on Zhihu (Chinese Quora) who said they tried several times to reproduce the experiment. But the results are all failures.

The thing is, despite my extremely shallow understanding of physics and chemistry, this article of theirs feels a bit like some sort of medieval alchemy to me. Then the whole article gave me the impression that "the researchers were too happy with the results to make the article out in the shortest time they can".

I'm waiting for a more formal peer-reviewed academic paper.

Edited July 31, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

17 hours ago, darthgently said:

I think it is the same paper Steve posted a link to in which case they claim "ambient pressures" but no numbers that I saw skimming.  They seem to claim that the internal pressures increase in the material when current flows through, but still no numbers that I saw.  I'm quite a bit skeptical but it is over my head mostly and look forward to other researchers sorting it out soon

Although our forum has many steve, but the one I post was from SYSU

What they found is near 80K in high pressure. 

Link from SYSU themselves: https://www.sysu.edu.cn/sysuen/info/1711/36032.htm

Link from Nature without paywall: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-023-01155-7

[Shpaget]

20 hours ago, farmerben said:

Does it need to be under high pressure?

They claim no - standard one atmosphere.

In addition to their less than pristine reputation regarding previous publications (I know, I know, ad hominem and all that), one of the videos on their website shows their experiment with a sample hanging on a string and being manipulated by a moving magnet. The thing is, the sample is bonded to a thick copper plate which would be more than enough to produce the effect shown, all on its own, no supreconductivity needed, just plain old eddy currents. I might chalk that up to an honest mistake had the experiment been done by amateurs, but someone working on superconductors should immediately see the issue and not overlook this.

[Shpaget]

A bit of an update on this front:

Sinéad M. Griffin from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published and article on arXiv where she does a computer analysis of the compound. Her results are in favor of superconductivity.

Folks at Huanzhong Univesity claim to have replicated the material, and that their sample shows Meissner effect, which is a sign of superconductivity.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/07/tracking-lk-99-superconductor-replication-efforts.html

 

[steve9728]

Yonhap News: The Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics has concluded, after experiments, that LK-99 is not a superconductor. 

Quote

"We can't say the material shows the exact Meissner effect (based on an experiment in the paper)," an official from the institute told Yonhap News Agency, adding the authors have refused to submit a sample for its test.

It's basically in a state of complete uncertainty right now, with labs everywhere saying "I've got solid evidence that this thing isn't a superconductor", but then there are places that say, "I've repeated the experiments according to the papers that are capable of superconducting".

[Kerbart]

Looks like it violated that essential rule of nature: "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is"

[Spaceception]

2 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

It's basically in a state of complete uncertainty right now, with labs everywhere saying "I've got solid evidence that this thing isn't a superconductor", but then there are places that say, "I've repeated the experiments according to the papers that are capable of superconducting".

From what I've gathered (just by reading threads of people talking about it), the process that was laid out how to create it seems to be incomplete, so researchers need to experiment a bit to find the right mix. Once people have a consistent idea of how to get the results SK and other labs are getting that shows promise of superconductivity, we'll see if it's legitimate or a false alarm.

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, Spaceception said:

From what I've gathered (just by reading threads of people talking about it), the process that was laid out how to create it seems to be incomplete, so researchers need to experiment a bit to find the right mix. Once people have a consistent idea of how to get the results SK and other labs are getting that shows promise of superconductivity, we'll see if it's legitimate or a false alarm.

Similar happened with the cold fusion hullabaloo.  Some other researchers claimed replication to only walk back or go silent later. Most could not replicate.  Process was not well defined in that case also.  Lots of money changed from gullible hands to clever hands

[darthgently]

An overview of the noise, fwiw

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I love the healthy mix of interest and skepticism here.  The 'investor' spaces however?  Yeek. 

[steve9728]

NYT: LK-99 Is the Superconductor of the Summer

The new video still doesn't fully hover... And wouldn't it be more solid proof that it's a room temp superconductor if he could shoot a video about himself measuring the resistance? Honestly, I really don't get it.

[darthgently]

40 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

NYT: LK-99 Is the Superconductor of the Summer

The new video still doesn't fully hover... And wouldn't it be more solid proof that it's a room temp superconductor if he could shoot a video about himself measuring the resistance? Honestly, I really don't get it.

That partial hover image is intriguing.  It opens some credence to the idea that there may be something to the process that is partially working.  As the text at the link suggested it could be that some of the crystals in that sample formed correctly while many didn't with regards to alignment or Cu/Pb ratio and structure.  I'm a tiny bit more open to an advance hiding in this.

As for the investor space, if one's job is being responsible for people's retirement accounts it would be a huge win to get in early on something like this, or away from an illusion as soon as feasible.  I imagine they are being hammered by clients wanting "in" but know they will be blamed if they put their client's money into a hole.  Gotta be pins and needles

Edited August 4, 2023 by darthgently

[kerbiloid]

23 hours ago, darthgently said:

Similar happened with the cold fusion hullabaloo.  Some other researchers claimed replication to only walk back or go silent later. Most could not replicate.  Process was not well defined in that case also.  Lots of money changed from gullible hands to clever hands

cold fusion reactor + hot supermagnet + Em-drive = ...

[Jacke]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

cold fusion reactor + hot supermagnet + Em-drive = ...

Pseudo-science hat trick.

[darthgently]

13 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

cold fusion reactor + hot supermagnet + Em-drive = ...

 

6 hours ago, Jacke said:

Pseudo-science hat trick.

Invest now before the greedy big corporations and corrupt governments close this amazing opportunity!  This video will be censored soon!  And that's not all!  If you invest today....

Edited August 5, 2023 by darthgently

[tater]

Interesting to follow this. In wait and see mode still

[Jacke]

11 hours ago, tater said:

Interesting to follow this. In wait and see mode still

As I said elsewhere:  Until there's a full process published that allows independent recreation and it's recreated, it's a fake.

[Shpaget]

17 minutes ago, Jacke said:

As I said elsewhere:  Until there's a full process published that allows independent recreation and it's recreated, it's a fake.

We already have claims of independent replication and positive results.