Towards a sustainable superconductor technology with magnesium diboride super magnets

Magnesium diboride (MgB2) is a low-cost, non-toxic superconductor used in field magnets, electric motors, and generators. However, producing nanoscale boron (B) particles to fabricate MgB2 is expensive. Researchers recently tackled this issue by using high-energy ultra-sonication in 2-propanol, a highly viscous solvent, to produce impurity-free, nm-sized B particles. The approach is cost-effective and enables fabrication of bulk MgB2 with high critical current density, a prerequisite for the sus...