Research on current carrying capacity of Bi-2223/Ag superconducting tape in the temperature range of 75–105 K

•Systemastic Ic data of Bi-2223 tape under magnetic fields above LN2 temperature.•Bi-2223 tape has a certain application potential at the temperatures above 77 K.•Bi-2223 tape can maintain a practical Ic above 90 K and parallel field of 0.05 T.•It is feasible for a Bi-2223 HTS power cable to operate around 90 K. In order to study the feasibility of the co-transmission of electricity and liquefied natural gas (LNG) based energy fluid, we carried out a project supported by a grant from Chinese national key research and development program, Basic Research on Superconducting DC Energy Pipeline. In this project, a superconducting cable cooled by LNG based mixed energy fluid at temperature around 90 K is proposed. As the first commercial high-temperature superconducting wire, the silver-sheathed (Bi, Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 tape is the only choice for the conductors of superconducting cable in this project due to its superiorities such as high critical temperature and high cost performance. Current carrying capacity is one of the important properties for applications of practical superconductors. However, there has been no systematic data on the current carrying capacity and characteristic of this kind of HTS wire above liquid nitrogen temperature available in literature up to date. In this study, we systematically measured the critical current of Bi-2223/Ag tape samples in a temperature range of 75–105 K, at different magnetic field and field angles. In this paper, experimental details and measurement results are reported. Some practical suggestions are proposed for the applications of this kind of HTS wire in this temperature region. The experimental results obtained in this study will make up the lack of the critical current data of Bi-2223/Ag tape above liquid nitrogen temperature in literature, and provide some fundamental information for the applications of Bi-2223/Ag tape in this temperature region.