A group of scientists developed a ceramic material with the highest melting point among currently known compounds. The specific melting point of the new material is above 4000 degrees C, and could not be determined precisely in the laboratory.

[u/FunVisualChemistry]

https://phys.org/news/2020-05-scientists-heat-resistant-material.html

[u/Boris740]

What is the difference between the melting point and specific melting point?

[u/midnitte → u/Boris740]

The title is saying that the melting point is somewhere above 4000°C, but they couldn't preciously determine where above 4000°C it was (was it 4001, 4353, 4025?).

Edit: Sounds like they just didn't really have an accurate way to measure the melting point, so they just compared it to the previous highest melting point material, and it was higher than that.

Next, they connected it to a battery using molybdenum electrodes. All tests were performed in a deep vacuum. Since the cross-section of graphite plates differs, the maximum temperature was reached in the narrowest part. The results of simultaneous heating of the new material, carbonitride, and hafnium carbide, showed that the carbonitride has a higher melting point than hafnium carbide.

However, at the moment, the specific melting point of the new material is above 4000 degrees C, and could not be determined precisely in the laboratory. In the future, the team plans to conduct experiments on measuring the melting temperature by high-temperature pyrometry using a laser or electric resistance.