The bane of homeowners at Halloween could be the boon of research into superconductors. Solid hydrogen sulfide—the same chemicals that make old eggs smell like rotten death—works as an excellent superconductor at a remarkably warm temperature of -94F. That's a step towards all kinds of great future tech, including hoverboards.

Hydrogen sulfide is produced, among other things, by bacteria eating and digesting organic matter in anaerobic environments. At room temperature, it's nasty stuff, and not just because it makes rotten eggs smell like rotten eggs. It's also corrosive, explosive, and poisonous. But compress it to a pressure of 100 million bars–and cool it way, way below freezing–and it turns from an odorous gas into a yielding, superconducting metal.

While -94F is cold by terrestrial standards (put on a coat or five), it's downright hot by superconductor standards, where -389F is the range where many normal superconductors are able to function, and record temperatures were previously around -164F. And the closer we get to room-temperature superconductors, the closer we are to hoverboards that don't need liquid nitrogen fuel to float.

While hydrogen sulfide's magic powers have been whispered about the last few years, it was finally confirmed today in an article in Nature. Getting hydrogen sulfide to those pressures and temperatures may make it too tall an order to develop on a wider scale, but it inches research ever closer to the end goal: room-temperature superconductors, available in home electronics and industrial devices. And hoverboards, of course.

Source: Science Magazine

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