A Potential Real Solution to the Energy Crisis that Could Change Everything”… This is how headlines described a rock-like substance, no larger than a small piece of glass, named “El Kay 99” by researchers in South Korea, claiming to have created a “world-first” superconductor that operates at room temperature and normal daily pressure.
The dramatic events surrounding “El Kay 99” unfolded in late July 2023 when the Korean research team published two pre-peer-reviewed research papers on the platform “Arkaive,” where researchers present works that have not yet undergone peer review. They asserted that “El Kay 99” was a superconductor upon placing it on a tabletop.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence of the superconductor was a video captured by the South Korean team, showcasing a silver coin-shaped sample of the material levitating above a magnet. The researchers claimed that the sample lifted due to the “Meissner effect,” a distinctive feature of superconductivity where the material expels magnetic fields.
In its simplest terms, a superconductor – a compound of copper, lead, phosphorus, and oxygen – is described as any material capable of conducting electric current without any resistance, meaning no energy loss through heat. Superconductors have been known for over 100 years, but all previously confirmed ones operated only at extremely low temperatures or under very high pressures.
Doubts hovered over this discovery, but as the researchers presented results about “El Kay 99,” online scientists were eager to share and many specialists worldwide joined in a frenzied online collaborative effort to replicate and test the new substance. Multiple unverified video clips circulated on social media showing the supposed levitation of “El Kay 99,” yet none of the researchers, attempting to reproduce the results initially, observed any levitation.
The Science and Technology editor at The New York Times, Kenneth Chang, dubbed “El Kay 99” as the “Summer Superconductor,” but these summer dreams were shattered after weeks of speculation and fervent attempts worldwide to create and test the new material. Many experts in the field of solid-state physics, typically a mysterious realm, then confirmed that these claims were erroneous. Research results indicated that they were futile.
Another reason for skepticism from the start was that the South Korean scientists, Sukbai Lee and Ji Hoon Kim of the Quantum Energy Research Center, a startup in Seoul, lacked a robust track record in this field, and “El Kay 99,” named after them, in its year of study, bore little resemblance to high-temperature superconductors seen in the past.
There is now a widespread consensus that the apparent hallmarks of the superconductor for electricity reported by the Korean team – zero resistance and the magnetic phenomenon known as the “Meissner effect” – might have other explanations. One such explanation suggests that impurities in the material, especially copper sulfide, are responsible for the sharp drop in its electrical resistance and the partial magnetic levitation, characteristics akin to those exhibited by superconductors.
The supposed miraculous substance led the Korean researchers astray and misled many others, thanks to the power of social media. This serves as a reminder that not everything promoted on social media aligns with reality. However, even if the path of “El Kay 99” is blocked, the search for a truly remarkable, everyday-operating superconductor will persist.
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