Superconductor Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O Showing Levitation at Room Temperature and Atmospheric Pressure

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Unlike, superconductor research that has extreme temperatures or pressures, the recent LK-99 work by South Korea [Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim, Hyun-Tak Kim] has the levitation effect for classic superconductors shown. The YCBO superconductors needed extreme cooling to show this effect.

NOTE: Levitation is possible with diamagnets. There is uncertainty if this is just a strong diamagnet or a superconductor. Awaiting study and confirmation.

A material called LK-99®, a modified-lead apatite crystal structure with the composition (Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O), has been synthesized using the solid-state method. The material exhibits the Ohmic metal characteristic of Pb(6s1) above its superconducting critical temperature, Tc, and the levitation phenomenon as Meissner effect of a superconductor at room temperature and atmospheric pressure below Tc. A LK-99® sample shows Tc above 126.85℃ (400K). South Korean researchers analyze that the possibility of room-temperature superconductivity in this material is attributed to two factors: the first being the volume contraction resulting from an insulator-metal transition achieved by substituting Pb with Cu, and the second being on-site repulsive Coulomb interaction enhanced by the structural deformation in the one-dimensional(D) chain (Pb2−O1/2−Pb2 along the c-axis) structure owing to superconducting condensation at Tc. The mechanism of the room-temperature Tc is discussed by 1-D BR-BCS theory.

Arxiv – Superconductor Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and
atmospheric pressure and mechanism

A spanish speaking person has reviewed the results and has some doubts. He does not like the curves, but also admits that this is new material.

This work only needed basic lab equipment. Confirmation and replications should be fast and easy if it is correct.

35 thoughts on “Superconductor Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O Showing Levitation at Room Temperature and Atmospheric Pressure”

    • There is nothing new in the Vice article. I have already reported that some Superducting researchers are doubtful, which is irrelevant if there is replication and confirmation. They have an opinion not based upon data for this LK-99 material.

      You are mixing up two different groups and different room temperature superconducting claims.

      Ranga Dias is from the University of Rochester. One of his papers on room temperature superconductors was getting a retraction.

      The South Koreans researchers of Lk-99.

      Ranga Dias is working with Lathanide Hydrides.

      The Koreans are working with lead sulphate and copper ions. Lanarkite – lead sulphate.

      In light of this review your comment and probably take it down. (Ranga Dias is completely different from the Koreans, Lk-99 is completely different from Lathanide Hydrides. Retract your apples, when talking about oranges. Koreans have never published Lk-99 work in Nature. They have nothing to retract.)

      2023
      Evidence of Near Ambient Superconductivity in a N-Doped Lanthanide Hydride
      Nathan Dasenbrock-Gammon, Elliot Snider, Raymond McBride, Hiranya Vindana, Dylan Durkee, Nugzari Khalvashi-shyyer, Sasanka Munasinghe, Sachith Dissanayake, Keith Lawler, Ashkan Salamat, Ranga P. Dias, in production Nature (2023)

      Observation of Conventional Superconductivity in Carbonaceous Sulfur Hydride at Near Ambient Temperature
      Hiranya Vindana, Elliot Snider, Sasanka Munasinghe, Sachith Dissanayake, Nilesh P. Salke Nugzari Khalvashi-shyyer, G. Alexander Smith, Nathan Dasenbrock-Gammon, Sergio Villa-Cortés, Zhenxian Liu, Dean Smith, Keith Lawler, Maddury Somayazulu, Russell J. Hemley, Ashkan Salamat, Ranga P. Dias, Under review in Nature (2023)

      Metallic hydrogen: Experiments on Metastability
      Ferreira, M. Møller, K. Linsuain, J. Song, Ashkan Salamat, Ranga P. Dias, Isaac F. Silvera, Under review in Phys. Rev. B. (2023)

      2022
      Second harmonic AC calorimetry technique within a diamond anvil cell
      Nathan Dasenbrock-Gammon, Raymond McBride, Gyeongjae Yoo, Sachith Dissanayake, and Ranga Dias, Review of Scientific Instruments 93, 093901 (202

      Carbon content drives high temperature superconductivity in a carbonaceous sulfur hydride below 100 GPa
      G Alexander Smith, Ines E Collings, Elliot Snider, Dean Smith, Sylvain Petitgirard, Jesse Smith, Melanie White, Elyse Jones, Paul Ellison, Keith V Lawler, Ranga P Dias, Ashkan Salamat, Chem. Commun., 58, 9064-9067 (2022)

      Pressure Induced 3D strain in 2D monolayer graphene
      Nathan Dasenbrock-Gammon, Sachith Dissanayake, Ranga P. Dias, “Pressure Induced 3D strain in 2D monolayer graphene” Under review in Phys. Rev. Lett. (2022)

      Dispersion interactions in proposed covalent superhydride superconductors
      Lazar Novakovic, Dean Sayre, Daniel Schacher, Ranga P. Dias, Ashkan Salamat, and Keith V. Lawler “Dispersion interactions in proposed covalent superhydride superconductors” Phys. Rev. B. 105, 024512 (2022)

      2021
      Stabilization of Superconducting Superhydrides
      Ranga P. Dias, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Volume 34, Number 18 (2021), Roadmap article on Advances towards Room Temperature Superconductivity, Invited article

    • I appreciate you posting this link. I especially like the closing line regarding how the process of peer review operates much slower than viral social media posts.

  2. This remined ne of the cold fusion guys in Utah many gears ago. many PhDs are fooled only because they have learned to acceot that amazing things are possible. But,.once they delve into the topic and try to duplucate it the disappointment sets in.

    Please dear God prove them right.

  3. I’m a computer science undergrad. I don’t know anything about whether this discovery is true or not. I’m just surfing the internet over this topic for a couple of hours but looking at it’s application, I think this might be the greatest discovery of 21st century.

  4. My team is en route to get Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O: x = 1;… by TWO methods…
    A. As suggested by authors i.e. Cu3P+Pb2SO5: we already synthesized Cu3P and Pb2SO5 successfully. The 1:1 (Cu3P: Pb2SO5) vacuum encapsulated is now in the furnace. Hopefully, by tomorrow we will be ready to come up with the sample and check its magnetic levitation at RT.
    B. SINGLE STEP… Pb9Cu(PO4)6O = Pb9CuP6O25 = 9(PbO)+CuO+5(P2O5): ONE STEP METHOD… The sample is due by tomorrow.
    Will hopefully post our results on arxiv by tomorrow night…
    https://www.facebook.com/AwanaVPS/

  5. My team is en route to get Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O: x = 1;… by TWO methods…
    A. As suggested by authors i.e. Cu3P+Pb2SO5: we already synthesized Cu3P and Pb2SO5 successfully. The 1:1 (Cu3P:Pb2SO5) vacuum encapsulated is now in the furnace. Hopefully, by tomorrow we will be ready to come up with the sample and check its magnetic levitation at RT.
    B. SINGLE STEP… Pb9Cu(PO4)6O = Pb9CuP6O25 = 9(PbO)+CuO+6(P2O5): ONE STEP METHOD… The sample is due by tomorrow.
    Will hopefully post our results on arxiv by tomorrow night…
    https://www.facebook.com/AwanaVPS/

  6. I’m a layman and I was just wondering if I had high conviction in idea that it will get replicated, would it be wise to invest in lead futures or is what they are using different?

    I am asking for technical advice not financial advice.

  7. Video of sample being pushed around the surface of a magnet, note the way it tilts to align with the local magnetic field (tilts up as it moves towards the less perpendicular field at edge of magnet face). That’s definitely meissner effect, not permanent magnet (which would just flip over) or diamagnetism (which is far weaker). It’s real (unless there is trickery at play)

    https://twitter.com/AiBreakfast/status/1684020175215927296

    • We have become far too compliant in accepting the research of scientists, who by their own rules, create a system that require constant publishing and development of novel new products or ideas. Science is complete with proof that can be observed and replicated. No amount of hope and desire can overcome the laws of nature that require many tries and many more failures.

  8. If true, the creators/authors are:
    1: Nobel Prize Candidates
    2: future Billionaires from patent/licensing
    3: National heroes
    4: Environmental heroes

  9. Admittedly, looking at the video, that’s some pretty weak superconducting action; The cuprate superconductors that were the first to break liquid nitrogen temperature had much more impressive behavior. I’m gonna guess that the sample there just has some superconducting regions, and is mostly non-superconducting.

    • Way better than all of the other superconductors since YCBO. And there is no cooling. So long as it works. Fixing the purity etc… is relatively easy.

      • My advice to them, if they were listening, would be to make a bunch of it, powder it in a ball mill, use diamagnetic levitation to sort out the superconducting regions, and then sinter back together just that fraction. In principle, that would help.

        • Don’t even need a ball mill, just mortar & pestle like the rest of this work. I recall mentioned somewhere that they already pulverized the final sample for some of the measurements.

        • You could have a magnetic track on a downward slope. Poor quality material would fall off the track, High quality material would float and could go over a separator to be collected.

  10. If it can be used practically, it is flexible enough and mass produced then great. Otherwise there are a lot of things done in lab, but they fail to be used in industry on massive scale.

    There are lots of claims and only a few live up to its promises.

    • I can think of paying applications that don’t require much more than what’s shown in that picture. Wouldn’t be exciting paying applications, but they’d pay.

  11. It’s not Dias, but some korean guys who have had clean reputations to date (and risk a lot by preprinting something fraudulent, though it might just be a bogus result meaning no harm, no foul), so there’s some hope, though this being a non-peer reviewed preprint leads to some natural skepticism.

    As Brian said, it should be relatively easy to synthesize and replicate the results…

  12. When I saw this, my first thought was that there are only 3 possibilities: their work is either a mistake, or a fraud, or a Nobel prize.

    But if it’s a mistake, then how did they levitate a magnet? And if it’s a fraud, then why did they publish the complete instructions that are very easy to verify? Which leaves one possibility …

    • In theory, if a mistake the sample could have just been extremely diamagnetic. Or if it was fraud, you could levitate a chunk of aluminum that way with an alternating field.

      But publishing a simple recipe? Yeah, I’m inclined to think it’s not fraud, and that photo is pretty persuasive.

      • It would be the dumbest fraud ever. Too easy to replicate with step by step instructions a 20th century pharmacist could follow. Good fraud is supposed to hide behind something mysterious like hydrino transmutation.

        • Right. It’s hard to see why anyone would try a fraud this way. And the photos look promising, for it not being a mistake. Which is all very encouraging.

          It still bothers me that in their photo, their sample is touching the magnet at one point. They should just crush it into tiny fragments, pour them all onto the magnet, and see if any float. Even a single floating grain would be pretty conclusive proof.

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