The New Generation of Superconductivity: The Past and Present Lives of Iron Based Superconductivity

Superconductivity is one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century. It refers to the phenomenon that the resistance of certain materials suddenly disappears when the temperature drops to a certain critical temperature or the superconducting transition temperature is below. Materials with this characteristic are called superconductors. In recent years, superconducting materials have increasingly broad application prospects in the fields of information communication, biomedicine, aerospace, and other fields.
New Material Intelligence NMT
The Past and Present Lives of Iron Based Superconductivity in China
Speaking of China’s iron based superconducting technology, we have to mention Academician Zhao Zhongxian, who was awarded the highest national science and technology award in 2016 for his research on iron based superconductors and liquid nitrogen temperature regions. The mastery of this technology in a sense determines China’s independence in the subsequent superconducting industry. Currently, we can flexibly apply this technology to important fields of life and production such as maglev trains and power transmission.
In the early years, the work related to superconductors in China did not go smoothly, because our country’s high-end technology started relatively late and its development speed was slower than that of developed countries. However, scientific researchers have not been intimidated by such difficulties, but have done their best to “make up for history lessons” for themselves, fully promoting the spirit of not being ashamed to ask questions, and using the relevant technical data on superconductors that have been published in various countries around the world to conduct their own research on this advanced technology.
Academician Zhao Zhongxian is the most famous of these researchers. During the research process, Academician Zhao Zhongxian found that superconductor materials have obvious boundaries at the temperatures of 25K and 30K, which are also important bases for dividing low-temperature superconductors and high-temperature superconductors.
The limit of material temperature is defined by foreigners as 40K, also known as the authoritative McMillan limit temperature. In general, the higher the critical temperature, the stronger the superconductor and its performance, as scientists around the world understand. However, in the development process of nearly 100 years, people have never exceeded the 40K superconductor temperature limit, and superconductor materials have also been dominated by foreign countries. Until 1986, the Chinese finally allowed their superconductor research industry to catch up with the teams of European and American people on the premise of starting the latest. We obtained over 40 grams of high-temperature superconductor materials in different metal systems, breaking the world record in one fell swoop. Make “40K McMillan Extreme Temperature” a joke.
In addition, Academician Zhao Zhongxian used Chinese rare earths in his subsequent research and used high-voltage fusion technology to create a material called a fluorine doped praseodymium cation iron arsenic iron based superconductor. The temperature limit of this material has reached 52K, once again breaking the record set by himself.
However, Zhao Zhongxian was not satisfied with this. Instead, he continued to use his existing experience to conduct more in-depth research on other superconductor materials. Soon after, Academician Zhao Zhongxian’s team successfully synthesized 55K fluorine doped arsenic oxide iron arsenic compounds (iron based superconductors). Due to the breakthrough in this technology, China can use its own technology to conduct research in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance, while Japan’s research on magnesium oxide has also been completely ignored. Their superconductor technology has completely become the past with the breakthrough of Academician Zhao Zhongxian.
The traditional main business of the company is communication cables, and the superconducting industry is the company’s seed industry, which is the company’s strategic reserve project. Yongding actively promotes the excellent performance management system, and has won the honors of “Jiangsu Province AAA Quality Credit Enterprise” and the first batch of information and communication industry enterprises with AAA credit rating. The company has national innovation platforms such as national enterprise technology centers, postdoctoral research workstations, and so on.https://forum.stoneitech.com/
The company is mainly engaged in the research, development, production, and sales of high-end titanium alloy materials, superconducting products, and high-performance high-temperature alloys. He has won the second prize of the National Technology Invention Award, the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, the first prize of the National Defense Science and Technology Progress Award, the first prize of the Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Award, the first prize of the Shaanxi Provincial Technology Invention Award, the fifth batch of single champion demonstration enterprises in the manufacturing industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the China Industrial Award, the first prize of the Aviation Science and Technology Progress Award, the first prize of the China Non ferrous Industry Science and Technology Award, and other awards.
Its main businesses include power transmission and transformation business, new energy business, and energy business. The company is the world’s second three-phase high superconducting transformer in grid operation, and the world’s first amorphous alloy iron core high superconducting transformer successfully put into grid operation in Xinjiang after passing various tests before grid connection. This is the first high superconducting power transformer with independent intellectual property rights in China.
Baosheng Technology Innovation Co., Ltd. is a company mainly engaged in the development, manufacturing, sales, and related production technology development of wires, cables, and cable accessories. The superconducting cable project has completed the installation and commissioning of six main equipment for low-temperature superconducting cables, and has signed a technical agreement with the Northwest Non ferrous Metals Research Institute to cooperate in the development of high-temperature superconducting materials. From the perspective of non net profit deduction in the past five years, the average non net profit deduction in the past five years is 130 million yuan.
The company’s category is energy storage+ultra high voltage+photovoltaic+military industry, mainly engaged in the development and sales of secondary and primary equipment for power systems. The company’s products mainly include intelligent power transformation and distribution systems, intelligent medium voltage power supply and consumption equipment, intelligent meters, intelligent charging and replacement systems for electric vehicles, DC transmission systems, and EMS processing services.
Superconducting industry maintains rapid development
With the breakthrough in the preparation and industrialization of practical high-temperature superconducting materials, governments and large enterprises around the world have provided strong support for the application research and development of superconducting electrical technology. Superconducting cables, superconducting current limiters, superconducting transformers, superconducting energy storage systems, superconducting motors, multi-functional integrated superconducting power devices, and superconducting substations are the foundation for achieving significant innovation in superconducting electrical technology, and are the key technologies with the most market potential and application value in the strategic emerging industry of superconducting application technology.
Currently, the superconducting market size is 5.08 billion euros, of which the low-temperature superconducting market size reaches 5.05 billion euros, with superconducting materials accounting for 99.41%; In 2017, the market size of superconducting materials still accounted for more than 90% of the global superconducting market.
It is expected that by 2022, the global superconducting technology market will increase to $5.8 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.8% during the period. With the continuous improvement of technology, the demand for high-temperature superconductivity will continue to increase, especially in the field of electric power.
Based on the progressiveness of superconducting technology and its irreplaceability in specific fields, the future prospects are broad. All superconducting institutions still maintain their continuous investment in superconducting technology, and the superconducting industry has good prospects for development