Schematic illustration of the superconducting freeway for vitality transport and storage and superconductor levitation for the transport of individuals and items. Credit score: Vakaliuk et al.
New Idea Would Supply Financial, Environmental Advantages for Subsequent-Technology Transit, Power Transmission, and Storage
Researchers have proposed a cheap superconductor system that integrates electrical energy transmission and transportation utilizing present freeway infrastructure. This idea might allow high-speed journey and supply a way for storing and transporting clear vitality, providing important long-term financial and environmental advantages.
For a very long time, the promise of superconductivity for electrical energy transmission and transportation has been held again by excessive prices. Now researchers from the University of Houston (UH) and Germany have demonstrated a method to lower the fee and upend each the transit and vitality transport sectors by utilizing superconductors to maneuver individuals, cargo, and vitality alongside present freeway infrastructure.
The mixed system wouldn’t solely decrease the price of working every system however would additionally present a method to retailer and transport liquified hydrogen, an essential future supply of unpolluted vitality. The liquified hydrogen can be used to chill the superconductor guideway as it’s saved and transported, lowering the necessity for a separate specialised pipeline system able to cooling the gas to twenty levels Kelvin, or minus 424 Fahrenheit.
The concept, described in a paper published on April 24, 2023, in the journal APL Energy, suggests a future in which air travel and traditional freight transport could become obsolete, replaced by a “super system” allowing personal and commercial vehicles to travel at speeds up to 400 miles an hour – maybe even twice that fast.
A levitated model car zooming over the model of the superconducting guideway in Ren’s lab at the University of Houston. Credit: University of Houston
“I call it a world-changing technology,” said Zhifeng Ren, director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH, who came up with the concept and is a corresponding author on the paper. “Superconductivity has had such promise to transmit electric power without power loss, to power magnetically levitating, super-fast trains and for energy storage. But it has not been economically viable, which is why it hasn’t happened at large scale yet.”
The modern era of superconductivity research began in 1987, when a team led by UH physicist Paul Chu discovered a compound which acted as a superconductor at a temperature above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. Since then, demonstration projects have proven that superconductors can be used to power magnetically levitated trains and to transmit electrical power without energy loss, reducing waste.
Technical details remain to be resolved, said Ren, who is also M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Physics. “But the learning curve should not be steep since we have learned a lot during the past 40 years or so.”
Financing shall be one other problem. And whereas this proof-of-concept paper doesn’t embrace an financial evaluation, he stated combining transit and vitality techniques and utilizing present roadways would decrease the fee considerably in comparison with that of any particular person system. That, together with the venture’s potential long-term financial and environmental advantages, would outweigh the upfront prices, he stated.
Magnetically levitating trains historically function on a magnetized rail, with superconductors embedded within the practice undercarriage. This idea flips that, embedding superconductors into the prevailing freeway infrastructure and including magnets to the undercarriages of automobiles, which avoids having to chill the superconductors on every car. As a substitute, the liquified hydrogen would cool the superconductors because it strikes throughout the system, with liquified nitrogen and a vacuum layer used to thermally insulate the liquified hydrogen.
Researchers constructed a mannequin to display the important thing technical facet of the idea – levitating a magnet above a superconductor guideway. Liquified nitrogen was used to chill the superconductors within the mannequin; Ren stated future fashions will use hydrogen.
College of Houston researcher Zhifeng Ren discusses his idea of a superconductor-embedded freeway with colleague Shaowei Track. His group has demonstrated proof of idea utilizing a mannequin. Credit score: College of Houston
Autos with magnetized undercarriages – trains, cargo vans, even private automobiles – would enter the superconductor guideway, levitating and transferring at excessive velocity to succeed in their locations. After leaving the guideway, automobiles would proceed their journeys powered by conventional electrical or inner combustion motors.
Individuals would be capable of journey at their very own comfort whereas having fun with the time-saving advantages of high-speed trains and air journey, Ren stated. “As a substitute of 75 mph, you could possibly go 400 mph, from Houston to Los Angeles, or Houston to New York in only a few hours.”
Gasoline or electrical energy consumption would drop dramatically whereas the automobile or truck was on the superconductor guideway, lowering each the fee and the environmental footprint, he stated.
“All these advantages collectively, I believe it might change the world.”
Reference: “A multifunctional freeway system incorporating superconductor levitated automobiles and liquefied hydrogen” by O. Vakaliuk, Shaowei Track, U. Floegel-Delor, F. Werfel, Kornelius Nielsch and Zhifeng Ren, 24 April 2023, APL Power.
DOI: 10.1063/5.0139834
Along with Ren, co-authors on the venture embrace Shaowei Track with the Texas Heart for Superconductivity at UH; Kornelius Nielsch with the Leibniz Institute for Stable State and Supplies Analysis in Dresden, Germany; and O. Vakaliuk, U. Floegel-Delor and F. Werfel, all with Adelwitz Technologiezentrum GmbH (ATZ) in Torgau, Germany, which makes a speciality of high-temperature superconductivity materials fabrication.
