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This technology is now moving towards the pre-commercial stage through already announced or under discussion multi-hectometre cable projects. However, these multi-filamentary wires are expected to be replaced in the near future by a generation of cheaper HTS tapes, the Coated conductors (CC). According to their final report, SUPER3C is one of the first cables in the world using second generation (2G) HTS tapes as current carrying elements. The 2G-hybrid conductor utilises the advantages of both superconductivity and copper, enabling it to work and interconnect smoothly with conventional network components.

In conclusion, we have shown that a graphene coating transforms mechanically fragile nanotube networks into superelastic materials while maintaining the shape, strength, ultracompressibility, high porosity and conductivity of the networks.

The Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network (NanoKTN), in partnership with the British Coatings Federation (BCF) and the Paint Research Association (PRA), is announcing details of the Fourth Annual Nanotechnology and the Coatings Industry Conference, to be held in Nottingham on 8 October.

A new interdisciplinary study has shown that coating multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with aluminum oxide could lower the risk of lung injuries such as pulmonary fibrosis.

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Kansas State University have demonstrated a spray-on mixture of carbon nanotubes and ceramic that has unprecedented ability to resist damage while absorbing laser light.*

Our results show that, despite still needing efforts in terms of reproducibility of the assembly process and of AC loss reduction, this design is a promising and viable solution for high current-capacity cables made of coated conductors.

This manuscript reports on the recent progress and the remaining materials challenges in the development of coated conductors (CCs) for power applications and magnets, with a particular emphasis on the different initiatives being active at present in Europe. We first summarize the scientific and technological scope where CCs have been raised as a complex technology product and then we show that there exists still much room for performance improvement. The objectives and CC architectures being explored in the scope of the European project EUROTAPES are widely described and their potential in generating novel breakthroughs emphasized. The overall goal of this project is to create synergy among academic and industrial partners to go well beyond the state of the art in several scientific issues related to CCs' enhanced performances and to develop nanoengineered CCs with reduced costs, using high throughput manufacturing processes which incorporate quality control tools and so lead to higher yields. Three general application targets are considered which will require different conductor architectures and performances and so the strategy is to combine vacuum and chemical solution deposition approaches to achieve the targeted goals. A few examples of such approaches are described related to defining new conductor architectures and shapes, as well as vortex pinning enhancement through novel paths towards nanostructure generation. Particular emphasis is made on solution chemistry approaches. We also describe the efforts being made in transforming the CCs into assembled conductors and cables which achieve appealing mechanical and electromagnetic performances for power systems. Finally, we briefly mention some outstanding superconducting power application projects being active at present, in Europe and worldwide, to exemplify the strong advances in reaching the demands to integrate them in a new electrical engineering paradigm.

Non-uniformity of superconductor properties, e.g. a critical current reduction close to the edge of a coated conductor (CC) tape could degrade its performance in some power applications.

Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies and Chiba University have developed a high-temperature superconducting wire with an ultra-thin polyimide coating only 4μm thick, more than 10 times thinner than the conventional insulation used for high-temperature superconducting wires.

HUBER+SUHNER had recently cleared the first hurdle when the RADOX railway cable families were certified for the Russian GOST standards.