could a cable of distilled water contained by insulation act as a superconductor???

 

Last time I checked, distilled water wasn't a conductor at all... But as I have said before, physics isn't my forte.

 

Water is not a conductor.

Impurities/additives in water are what conduct.

Many moons ago, a co-worker and I tried to find a way to "lube" the skin effect.

Something like doping, adding a conductive layer that is rich in extra electrons, (n-type for example).

In researching the skin-effect, It almost seemed possible to have a "layer" of 2 skins that allowed for "superior" conduction over the standard metal.

Funding fell short, but it looked promising.

For instance, taking a copper conductor, and dipping it in a bath of silver, gave a higher amperage, cooler acting conductor than the copper alone, and with much less silver being used.

We had all kinds of ideas.

We had a "free" supply of silver that was being reclaimed from photographic processes.

Quite fun.

The only test equipment we had were temp, current, and voltage from a Fluke DMM.

We melted and dipped the conductors, so we could not get an exact repeatable result, as the thickness of the silver coating could not be controlled exactly. (or more than roughly )

 

thanks retched i would of enjoyed being there on your experiment. Without cooling a conductor below its critical temperature value, are there any other ways to superconduct? could a revolution of fibre optics be a solution?

 

Water has a unique property thats slightly conducts electricity, if you want to look into it further but it's nowhere near the superconductors which you mentioned. I remember it from my secondary chemistry lessons. Water having covalent bonds between hydrogen and oxygen will under go ionization of H+ and OH- ions. It conducts in a different way than when it contains a salt dissolved in it.

 

thanks retched i would of enjoyed being there on your experiment. Without cooling a conductor below its critical temperature value, are there any other ways to superconduct? could a revolution of fibre optics be a solution?

There are experiments being done with, or looking for, room temperature superconductors.

You may have some fun reading some of bill_marsden's threads.

Do a forum search for superconductors and you will find bill's thread.

There are links to articles on physics websites with a great deal of info regarding super-conduction, its current day requirements and theories.

 

i read an article about those experiments.If they find a material that will superconduct at room temperature the world will change. i think it would then be possible to levitate a human in a magnetic field, now that would be awesome