Electrical Conductivity Calculator

Calculate electrical conductivity in siemens per meter and other units. The conductivity describes how well an object made of a homogeneous material conducts electricity. It is calculated from the conductance of the material per distance. Conductance is the reciprocal of electrical resistance. The specification of the electrical conductivity for various materials generally refers to a cross-section of one square meter, which is much more than a cable, for example, has.

The formulas are:
σ = G / d
G = I / U
R = U / I

The units are:
1Ω = 1V / 1A
1S = 1A / 1V

Please enter the distance, plus voltage and amperage or conductance or resistance. The electrical conductivity will be calculated.

Example: an electrical conductivity of 300 μS/cm is indicated on a bottle of mineral water. If you enter 300 microsiemens as the conductivity and 1 centimeter as the length, you get a conductivity of 0.03 siemens per meter and a resistance of 3.333 kiloohms.

Electrical conductivity is given in Siemens per meter, where Siemens, the unit of conductance, is the reciprocal of Ohm, i.e. one divided by Ohm. Accordingly, 5 Ohms are 0.2 Siemens. For a distance of 2 meters with this conductance, the underlying material would have a conductivity of 0.2 S/m.

To transport electrical current, materials with high electrical conductivity are of course preferred. The conductivity of superconductors is infinite, so they have no resistance at all. However, superconducting materials only have this property at low, usually extremely low temperatures. There is the term high-temperature superconductor for those with temperatures above -196 degrees Celsius, which can be cooled with liquid nitrogen. These are therefore not usable for most practical applications.
At room temperature, the carbon modification graphene has the best conductivity with 100 million S/m. However, graphene is still expensive to produce, chemically reactive and difficult to integrate. The metal with the best value is silver with 61 million S/m, but this is also expensive. Almost as good and much cheaper is copper with 58, which therefore commonly is used for cables. Aluminium with 37 is also used as a conductor because it is even cheaper and lighter. Its poorer conductivity can be compensated by a larger cross-section of the cable.