"Room temperature superconductivity" has sparked heated discussions, and we talk to scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs about the story of the superconductivity industry.
Text | Xue Xiao stubborn, Zhang Yichi
Edit | Su Jianxun
Like a stone thrown on the surface of a calm lake, the news that "scientists announced the discovery of room-temperature superconductivity" immediately aroused heated discussions.
Hong Zhiyong, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University who has been working in the field of superconductivity for 20 years, said frankly to 36 Carbon: "I didn't expect this incident to trigger such a big response in the investment community, and even at 9:00 p.m. that night, someone kept making a phone call, saying that it must be discussed and interpreted." According to 36 Carbon, VCs have "rushed" into domestic laboratories for superconductivity research.
The tipping point of this mass communication is the keyword "room temperature", which means that superconductors with great economic value can be achieved without much effort, and in the future, they can have endless clean energy to solve human energy anxiety and environmental problems.
The focus of capital and industry is whether the entire electrical field will be subversively replaced by superconductivity, and whether it will reshape the world's power energy pattern in the future.
"The information revolution of the past 60 years depends on breakthroughs in semiconductor materials, and the energy revolution in the next 60 years depends on breakthroughs in superconducting materials." Mi Lei, founding partner of China Science and Technology Innovation Star, said to 36 Carbon.
Mi Lei said that the superconducting material entering the superconducting state has two characteristics, one is zero resistance, which can avoid the heat loss of electric energy in the transmission process and save a lot of energy; The second is diamagnetism, which is one of the foundations for achieving controllable nuclear fusion, which is of great significance for the commercialization of controllable nuclear fusion.
One of the downstream of superconducting materials is controlled nuclear fusion, for example, if controlled nuclear fusion is to make electric vehicles, then superconducting magnets wound from superconducting materials are equivalent to lithium batteries. The news came out of the circle, so that controllable nuclear fusion also ushered in a "highlight moment".
But the opposite side of the coin is the cold eyes of the academic circle.
"My superconducting colleagues around me didn't come over and ask, not a single one. The general mentality is: wait to be verified. Hong Zhiyong said.
From a professional point of view, the more critical problem to achieve room temperature superconductivity is another environmental condition "10,000 atmospheres".
Humans have previously achieved superconductivity at near room temperature, but it requires more than 2 million times atmospheric pressure. The latest results have reduced the required pressure value to 10,000 atmospheres, a 200-fold reduction. Despite the significant drop in values, it is like a person losing weight, from 10 tons to a ton, and although the weight loss is good, it is still seriously overweight.
In other words, although the value has decreased, it is still extremely difficult to achieve engineering.
So, how far is it to reach the "standard weight"? The difficulty of dropping from 10,000 atmospheres to a normal pressure state is comparable to moving from the high-temperature superconducting liquid nitrogen temperature zone (critical temperature 77K, about minus 196 degrees Celsius) to normal temperature, or even more difficult.
After the heated debate, the "protagonist" of the news, scientist Ranga Dias, responded to the media that he was "confident" in the review of the new material.
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Physics, University of Rochester: Langa Dias. Photo credit: The New York Times
According to the Daily Economic News, the new material has been repeated many times in laboratories such as the University of Rochester, and has been observed and verified by third parties, and the paper has also been peer-reviewed to meet the standards of the journal Nature. As for the "retraction incident" in 2020, Dias said that he had resubmitted the paper for reconsideration. "The questions posed by the Nature editors at the time had no impact on the quality of the experimental data or the conclusions we reached. We are also confident in the quality of our work and experiments in 2020. ”
As for whether the results can be verified by the review, it is better to let the bullets fly a little longer. Beneath the surface of the excitement, it is more realistic to pay attention to the superconducting industry behind it.
At present, there are about one or two thousand practitioners in the domestic superconductivity industry. This industry and its upstream and downstream industries have been lurking below the surface for many years, unpopular, niche and high threshold. So this time, when the tip of the iceberg of the industry surfaced at an unexpected speed and way and entered the public eye, we talked to scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs who have experienced the cold and warm of the industry about their views on recent hot spots and the story between ourselves and superconductivity.
Here's their readme:
01
Hong Zhiyong, co-founder of Shanghai Superconductor and professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University: In 20 years of entering the industry, he stood in the public spotlight for the first time
I first saw in my circle of friends that there were scholars in the field of superconductivity forwarding the news of room-temperature superconductivity, probably a few hours before the public. Later, the circle of friends brushed the screen, and was soon "bombarded" by friends around him.
Investors kept asking me, and I spent half a day answering questions. There were too many people who asked later, I simply sorted it out into a standard reply, as long as someone asked, I would directly send the 200-word reply. They also thought it was strange and said, "Are you ready?" ”
My personal first reaction was calmer, at least those of us who are engaged in research in the same field are calmer. What I didn't expect was that in a few hours, the news attracted so much attention in the investment community, that even at 90 p.m., there were people who kept making conference calls, saying that they must discuss and interpret this matter. For the first time in my nearly 20-year history in the superconducting industry, I have felt the attention of the capital community so quickly.
Friends from the capital and industry circles focus on two points: first, whether the entire electrical field is to be subverted by superconductivity, whether this is a great discovery that will affect the world's power energy pattern; Second, once this research is proved to be true, whether the current high-temperature superconducting materials and low-temperature superconducting materials will be eliminated and have no to dry, especially focusing on the future development of some listed companies in the field of superconductivity.
But none of my fellow superconducting superconductors came to ask, none of them, and I didn't ask them. People will repost, but this matter is very bland, and they know what is going on, and everyone's general mentality is: wait for verification. If it is verified to be true, it is of course a great thing, it is a very great discovery in superconducting physics, and even the entire condensed matter physics, comparable to the progress of people from low-temperature superconductivity to high-temperature superconductivity in the late 80s of the last century.
In fact, in academia, there have always been two technical routes to achieve superconductivity: ultra-low temperature or ultra-high pressure. In the past 100 years, academia and industry have focused more on using ultra-low temperatures to achieve superconductors, in fact, superconductors can also be realized under ultra-high pressure, but fewer people are engaged in this research, so they may not be concerned by the public.
In the entire physics community and industry, it is generally believed that it is much easier to achieve ultra-low temperature than ultra-high pressure, especially on the surface of the earth, for long-distance or large-volume electrical equipment, ultra-low temperature is easier to achieve, and it can be more intuitively associated with future industrial application scenarios.
In contrast, the ultra-high pressure route is not so intuitive. Hundreds of thousands, millions of times the atmospheric pressure, to use diamond top anvil or a variety of large presses to achieve, if it is a long-distance or large electrical equipment, its application mode under ultra-high pressure is not clear.
The focus of this news is that the superconductivity that originally achieved near room temperature in an environment of more than 2 million atmospheres has been reduced to 10,000 atmospheres, a reduction of 200 times, which can be defined as people moving from ultra-high pressure to relatively high pressure. The public is concerned about whether superconductivity is closer to normal temperature and pressure, which means that superconductivity can be achieved "without hard work". In fact, the distance from 10,000 atmospheres to normal pressure is comparable to the distance from the high-temperature superconducting liquid nitrogen temperature zone to normal temperature, which is also very difficult.
High-temperature superconductivity has moved towards industrialization, and its characteristics are that a very thin wire carries a high current, neither resistance nor heat. Corresponding to this characteristic, high-temperature superconducting downstream applications can be summarized into two categories: First, all large-scale electrical equipment, such as traditional cables, transformers, and motors, have corresponding superconducting versions, replacing traditional copper wires and aluminum wires with superconducting wires, or lightweight, miniaturized and energy-saving equipment.
Second, the use of superconducting materials can produce a stable strong magnetic field, if the magnetic field to reach the level of several Teslas or even a dozen Teslas, other methods are difficult to do, copper wire and aluminum wire even if more coils, can only produce super pulse magnetic field. This has led to applications including controllable nuclear fusion, particle accelerators, and superconducting maglev trains.
Maglev train concept drawing. Image source: Visual China
The high-temperature superconductivity industry really exploded in 2019. This year coincided with the first commercial demonstration or slightly rampant stage for many superconducting downstream applications. Construction of two superconducting cables in Shanghai and Shenzhen began at that time, and superconducting induction heaters were mass-produced in small batches. By 2020, the world's controlled nuclear fusion privatization companies will be financing one after another, and they all plan to completely change the global energy landscape in 10 to 20 years.
The demand for superconducting materials in the downstream market suddenly pulled up, prompting investors and investment institutions to find out what the upstream raw materials are, and the industry became hot.
A very important node in the middle is that in 2021, the US fusion company CFS (Commonwealth Fusion Systems) raised $1.8 billion. A single large-scale financing is a huge shot in the arm for the entire high-temperature superconducting industry, and even drives the investment and attention of many people outside the industry. They know the pull that nuclear fusion pulls on the amount of high-temperature superconducting material.
After 2019, especially in the past one or two years, it is obvious that the primary and secondary markets pay more attention to high-temperature superconducting materials than the downstream market, and they are growing exponentially. For example, the annual increase in material sales 5 times, the attention of investors may increase 50 times, because Shanghai Superconductor is the world's largest shipment of the second generation of high-temperature superconducting materials company, so this feeling is particularly obvious. Although not everyone voted, everyone was very eager to figure this out.
It has taken 35 years for the second-generation high-temperature superconductivity to be put into practical use. Frankly speaking, there is no consensus in the global scientific community on the next generation of practical superconductors, and everyone does not know what the next generation of materials is. But this must also be based on a time scale of twenty or thirty years, and it is not achievable in the short term.
02
Mi Lei, founding partner of China Science and Technology Innovation Star: Superconductivity is to the energy field, which is to the information field
Although there have been technological breakthroughs in the field of superconductivity before, they have never received such large-scale attention and coverage. The reason is that the concept of "room temperature" has exceeded the expectations of academia, industry and the public, making many potential applications of superconducting technology a reality.
Although the results of this study have yet to be verified, it does not prevent it from becoming a very good popular science event and attracting more people to pay attention to the superconducting track. Correspondingly, academia and industry are likely to increase funds and capital investment, and the popularity of the track will also be improved, which is a good thing for the entire superconducting industry.
Superconductivity is a transformative technology in the energy sector. I believe that superconductivity is to the energy field what semiconductors are to the information field. The information revolution of the past 60 years depends on breakthroughs in semiconductor materials, and the energy revolution in the next 60 years depends on breakthroughs in superconducting materials. Superconducting materials entering the superconducting state have two characteristics, one is zero resistance, which can avoid the heat loss of electric energy during transmission and save a lot of energy; The second is diamagnetism, which is one of the foundations for achieving controllable nuclear fusion, which is of great significance for the commercialization of controllable nuclear fusion.
We started by investing in new energy and slowly paid attention to superconducting materials in the process of focusing on controllable nuclear fusion. Four or five years ago, I was paying attention to the energy revolution, thinking holistically in the general direction of the energy revolution, and planning the direction we should layout, from energy storage, next-generation batteries, battery recycling, to hydrogen energy, controlled nuclear fusion.
For the entire superconductivity technical route, the most mature is low-temperature superconductivity, which has been industrialized. The second is the rapid development of high-temperature superconductivity, China Science and Technology Innovation Star began to lay out this direction last year, and has successively invested in projects such as Transwarp Energy and Yixi Technology, hoping to promote the industrialization and commercialization of this field.
High-temperature superconductivity is a very marketable track, in addition to controllable nuclear fusion, maglev trains, maglev generators, nuclear magnetic resonance, power transmission and other industries all benefit from high-temperature superconductivity. Recently, high-temperature superconducting cables have passed the test in Shenzhen and have entered high-rise buildings.
The direction of room temperature superconductivity that exceeds the public's expectations cannot be implemented in the short term, and the current attitude of the primary market is also based on wait-and-see discussions, and many practitioners are rushing to learn relevant knowledge. We can lay out early because we are deeply engaged in the field of hard science and technology, and we are more sensitive to cutting-edge technology. At that time, we also consulted experts, studied relevant materials and papers, and then contacted specific projects, communicated with scientists and entrepreneurs, and paid attention to it for a long time before gradually going to the layout.
When making investment decisions, we will comprehensively examine and understand from the aspects of technology, team, market, etc., to see whether the project party itself has the accumulation and ability to do this well. When communicating with the founder, the first thing to do is to clarify the technical details, which is the core. For example, what is the principle of technical implementation, how the specific material is made, whether the process is feasible, whether there is available equipment, the possibility of large-scale mass production, its finished product qualification rate, and so on. Once the team has demonstrated these questions, let's look at how cost-effective it is. If the project team has indeed accumulated many years in this field, and it is possible to get things done, we can invest.
Both scientific research and technology entrepreneurship need to adhere to long-term principles, and so does hard technology investment. Ten years ago, countless people asked me what hard technology is and why I should invest in hard technology. By now, everyone is paying attention to hard technology. "Although tens of millions of people are going to go." We need to be patient and support the most ambitious people in China and let them get things done.
03
Chen Rui, CEO of Transwarp: Controllable fusion has also ushered in a highlight moment
My field of controlled nuclear fusion belongs to the downstream of superconducting technology, for example, if we are building electric cars, superconducting magnets wound from superconducting materials are equivalent to lithium batteries in our industry.
For controlled nuclear fusion, these two days are a highlight moment. A large number of industry professionals and investors came to me to talk about the impact of superconducting technology breakthroughs on controlled nuclear fusion, including friends who are completely unrelated to the industry.
My first reaction when I saw the news was to be more inclined to be a skeptic. According to my observations, the superconducting industry includes upstream and downstream, and everyone's views are basically the same. I think this is not a technological breakthrough, more like opening up a new idea for studying superconductivity, in addition to ultra-low temperature or ultra-high pressure, you can continue to find new materials in this direction.
Members of the Dias laboratory adjust the diamond inside the diamond anvil under a microscope. Photo credit: The New York Times
From more than 2 million atmospheres to 10,000 atmospheres, it can be understood that a person loses weight, from 10 tons of weight to one ton, although the weight loss effect is very good, but still a big fat person. Although the value has decreased, it is still extremely difficult to engineer. Even if the results released this time are verified to be true, there is still a long way to go to invest in the downstream application level.
Controlled nuclear fusion downstream of superconducting technology can be popularly compared to the "artificial sun", through the fusion reaction of atoms to produce a sun-like effect, from which energy is obtained. At present, controlled nuclear fusion uses a high-temperature superconducting material, yttrium barium copper-oxygen system.
In the past, most devices for controlled nuclear fusion could only use low-temperature superconductivity, and the current density of this material was relatively low, requiring large devices to test, and the capital investment was huge, and ordinary commercial institutions could not afford it. From around 2016, high-temperature superconducting materials gradually matured and moved from the laboratory to industrialization. The biggest feature of yttrium barium copper-oxygen system is high current density, so that downstream controllable nuclear fusion can use relatively small devices to test the whole scheme, the investment is reduced to billions of scale, and the production and construction cycle of each generation of devices only takes two or three years, with the possibility of commercialization.
Breakthroughs in superconducting technology, especially high-temperature superconducting materials, allow the controllable nuclear fusion industry to make "lithium batteries" with controllable volume and performance, which can be loaded into the car and run.
The superconducting and controllable nuclear fusion industry has a high cognitive threshold and a long cycle, and entrepreneurs and investment institutions need to be patient. I remember once we met with investors, chatted for more than 8 hours, did not eat in between, and he went through all the technical details in the laboratory.
For the entrepreneurial team, the key is the team's comprehensive engineering ability and technical ability, that is, whether the team has the ability to achieve the program and goals, really make things, and whether there is a complete product process and R&D plan.
From the perspective of application scenarios, superconducting technology can reduce human energy anxiety, and the most direct embodiment is that in the process of energy transmission, such as west-to-east power transmission, there is basically no energy loss. For the daily life of ordinary people, the changes brought about by the progress of superconducting technology can be more intuitively and deeply felt in the maglev train and nuclear magnetic resonance.
04
Peng Chuyao, CEO of Deep Magnetic Technology: feel the ups and downs of the superconducting industry on the front line of the market
I joined Shanghai Superconductor in 2014 and quickly became the head of the marketing and sales team, and then resigned to start a business, and I have been exploring the most likely path for large-scale commercialization of the downstream industry of superconductivity.
On the morning of March 9, I just opened my mobile phone, and I found that in the largest superconductivity academic seminar group in the country, everyone was discussing the matter of room-temperature superconductivity. My first reaction at the time was that this incident might be a fire, and if the verification results were repeatable, it would be a big academic breakthrough.
But the spread of the matter later surprised me, I didn't expect it to be so popular. Venture capital, brokers, and media all came to ask, and I heard that some VCs have rushed into several domestic laboratories doing superconductivity research.
Over the years, the practitioners of the domestic superconductivity industry have developed from dozens or hundreds to about one or two thousand people. Regarding this result, there are naturally heated discussions in the academic group, but the overall attitude is still more rational: first of all, whether this result can be repeated, everyone still has a question mark. Even if repeatable, this material system is still a long way from commercialization, and the high pressure required is a big limitation in application.
Everyone believes that the greater significance of this incident is that it has attracted the attention of investors, the government, the public and other aspects of society, which will help accelerate the industrialization process of the superconducting industry.
Ten years ago, the application of China's high-temperature superconductivity industry in the industrial side had just begun. Previously, the industrialization speed of the superconducting industry was limited, and only large-scale applications of superconducting materials were realized in the field of magnetic resonance imaging equipment (MRI), and preliminary applications were realized in the fields of superconducting cables and nuclear fusion. On the one hand, the reason is that the cost of materials is still relatively high, on the other hand, various superconducting application products such as superconducting wind power and maglev trains are still in the development stage in previous years, and many scenarios have just matured. In addition, there is also a process of educating the market, allowing the market to see the many breakthroughs that have occurred and are taking place in this field.
Two weeks after I got a PhD offer in physics from Oxford University in 2014, by chance, I met the management of Shanghai Superconductivity, and after visiting Shanghai Superconductivity, I was invited to be the first person in the company's marketing and sales team. I have been doing theoretical research before, without any market experience, and I have an entrepreneurial dream, thinking that if I start my own business in the future, it is difficult to do it by technology and theory alone, and joining Shanghai Superconductor to be responsible for marketing and sales may be a better starting point. After careful consideration, I chose to give up continuing my studies and return to China to join Shanghai Superconductor to start a business together, establish more contacts with the industrial side, understand the current situation of the industrial side, and accumulate business experience in this field.
When I really went to "hit the market", I realized that it was not easy to get the market to accept domestic strips. Previously, domestic high-temperature superconducting strip was "stuck in the neck" by two overseas companies, which was not only expensive, but also domestic companies had to accept more harsh business terms - first payment before goods. Because the domestic market had formed a dependence on foreign strips at that time, we did not have an advantage in the bidding process, and after some twists and turns, we finally won a large order, and this single occupied nearly one-sixth of the superconducting market share that year.
After winning the first order, we opened the market, won all the orders in the domestic market in 2015, and began to enter the overseas market in 2016. In this process, we endured some international coldness, and many academic bulls at that time believed that we simply did not have the ability to mass-produce high-temperature superconducting strip.
At an international superconducting exhibition in 2016, I introduced our products to an authoritative overseas professor, who almost ignored us and did not believe that Chinese companies could provide the second generation of high-temperature superconducting strip. My team and I could only send them samples one by one, let them go back to measure the parameters, and then communicate with them further, before slowly changing their cognition.
At that time, the energy of the domestic high-temperature superconducting industry was mainly in materials and application research, and the breakthrough in downstream industry applications was limited, which was one of the reasons why I chose to start my own business in 2017 to promote the accelerated commercialization of superconductivity and magnetic levitation. My original intention was to create a maglev high-speed urban transportation system similar to Musk's Hyperloop, but at that time, the domestic market fit in this field was not enough, and most people did not have an in-depth understanding of maglev, and their cognition only stayed at this cool technology. With the gradual popularity of the superconductivity industry, I have also found a new direction for application development in years of exploration, and may also make new attempts at superconducting technology and commercialization later.
| Image courtesy of The New York Times
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