Manufacture

• Commercial copper wires can differ from industrial copper wires in their manufacture. Commercial wires, like the kind used in home broadband, are manufactured into specialist ADSLs, or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines. By forming each wire into a dedicated transmitter of signals for a particular purpose like this, the copper wire is changed from a standard wire that could be used in industry or commerce, into one designed for a specific commercial application. ADSLs have an asymmetrical copper wire, which means data travels faster in one direction than the other, as described by Rishi Natarajan at Stanford University.
  
  

Refinement and Finishing

• Although both commercial and industrial copper wires can be refined and finished in a variety of ways, only industrial copper wire is subject to specialized processes like mineral insulation and metal sheathing found in Type MI Cabling. These cables have a sophisticated liquid and gas continuous copper sheath over the top of the central conducting copper wire and then an insulation layer provided by a coating of magnesium oxide. Type MI processing creates the safest possible copper wiring system, according to the University of Virginia.
  
  

Structure and Properties

• Commercial copper wires are used regularly in laboratory research and, as a result, their structure and properties are known in more detail than industrial versions. The "Niobium-tin copper wire" is an example. Originally created by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1995, niobium-tin copper wire was found to be an effective superconductor, producing a critical current density of one million amperes over less than half a square inch, as reported by Florida State University. This information meant that niobium-tin copper wire could be used in applications that had an otherwise limiting magnetic field strength, referred to as the "irreversibility line."
  
  

Applications

• One of the main differences between industrial and commercial forms of copper wiring is their use in a range of differing applications. Industrial copper wire, for example, is regularly used for "trolley wiring", the overhead power source for trains, trams and subways, wiring in construction cranes, specialist electronics in the aeronautics industry and in electrical conveyances and utilities. Commercial copper wires are used in consumer electronics, plumbing, heating, indoor electrical cabling, automotive controls and commercially-available medical appliances.