Bad Soden, Germany,
03
December
2019
|
13:00
Europe/Amsterdam

Demo200: Messer innovation to cool superconductor

Messer, the largest family-run industrial gases specialist worldwide, is taking part in the “DEMO200” project funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The project is focused on developing a superconducting high-current busbar. The aim is to be in a position to use the new busbar in a real-life project in five years’ time.

Today’s high-current applications are associated with significant energy losses due to electrical resistance when transmitting electricity. Superconducting high-current transmission offers the potential for energy-efficient, ecological and economical power transmission in the gigawatt range for aluminium production, industrial electrolysis facilities and large data centres. Messer is using an innovative new concept to generate the necessary operating temperature of 70 Kelvin, or minus 203 degrees Celsius. The special thing here is that the cooling temperature is below the boiling point of liquid nitrogen – minus 196 degrees Celsius – and no pumps are required for heat removal. An experimental setup at the aluminium smelter in Voerde will be used to check whether all the system components are functioning properly. First, the system will be developed as a 3D model to allow geometric testing of the interfaces to be carried out. After that the necessary documents will be prepared for installation, commissioning and trial operation.

This project is being run under the overall responsibility of Vision Electric Super Conductors. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is the scientific project partner. Trimet Aluminium, Theva Dünnschichttechnik and Deutsche Nanoschicht are associated partners.

Further information on the project can be found at www.demo200.de