2024-03-03 18:27:49
Although copper still maintains great importance in the world of electricity due to its high conductivity and his comfortable price In the market, research in the United States identified a new strong competitor among metals that could replace it. Its about aluminum.
Researchers of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), materials science specialists, discovered that aluminum is not only cheaper, but also lighter and more abundant than copper, used from electronics to power distribution networks. Their findings were published in Physical Review B.
Copper fibers are found in most electrical cables that we use. Photo: Flickr
Why is aluminum a better alternative to copper?
Aluminum, a metal known for its lightness y corrosion resistanceemerges as a promising alternative to copper in the field of electrical conductivity.
Costing three times less than copper, according to updated data from Statista, aluminum offers an economical and viable solution for industries looking to reduce costs without sacrificing quality. Furthermore, its abundance in the Earth’s crust makes it more accessible and sustainable in the long term.
Although copper has historically been preferred for its greater conductivity, aluminum has significant advantages in terms of weight and versatility, because, being 30% lighter, it becomes ideal for technologies in which weight is a factor. crucial, as in electric vehicles and aircraft.
However, although everything sounds rosy, the main challenge for scientists has always been to improve the electrical conductivity of aluminum so that it is comparable to the main conductive metal, since it only has 60%.
“What if you could make aluminum more conductive, even 80% or 90% as conductive as copper? You could replace it and that would make a big difference because aluminum is lighter, cheaper and more abundant,” Keerti Kappagantula, a PNNL scientist, said in a statement.
How was the conductivity of aluminum increased?
To achieve greater conductivity of aluminum, the PNNL team focused its efforts on modifying the atomic structure of metalin addition to identifying its temperature effects and structural defects as a conductor.
As this was an innovative approach for metals, the researchers looked to semiconductors for inspiration because previous studies had successfully simulated the conductivity of materials based on silicon and some metal oxides.
After adapting these concepts, they simulated what would happen to the conductivity of aluminum if the individual atoms in its structure were rearranged. This entire process generated large gains in the total conductivity of the metal.
“We didn’t think these results would be so close to reality,” Kappagantula said. “This model simulation that’s based on the atomic structure and its different states is so accurate that I said, ‘Oh, that’s right on target.’ It’s very exciting.”
According to experts, now the next step remains: jumping from simulations to experiments in the laboratory to see if the theory matches the results.
What is an electrical conductor?
It is a material that offers low resistance to the movement of electric current, a quality that is due to the low presence of electrons in its atoms.
There are various materials that are good conductors of electricity. Among the metals, in addition to aluminum and copper, there are silver, gold and iron. Graphite, a non-metallic material, meanwhile, is a semiconductor.