GE, SEI to Develop High Temperature Superconductor

General Electric Company (GE) and Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI) announced on Thursday they agreed to enter research collaboration to develop industrial equipment using higher-temperature superconducting materials. SEI will concentrate in superconducting wire development and the research team at GE Global Research, the centralized research organization of GE, will focus on design and prototyping of new industrial applications for superconducting wires. GE and SEI expect commercial applications in energy and health care fields.GE engages in development for broad range of products using more advanced superconducting materials, such as medical diagnostic imagers, power-generating turbines and industrial drives. GE Global Research has an experience to have developed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the first time in the world in early 1980s, which is benefited from high-temperature superconducting technology.SEI succeeded in commercial production of DI-BSCCO wire (Dynamically Innovative Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O wire) in May 2004, which can carry maximum 200 amperes at 77.3 kelvins of liquid nitrogen temperature within 1 square millimeters of cross sectional area without electric losses. The electric current amount is 150 times of copper wire.