Cold Facts Digital – The go-to place for Cryogenics and Superconductivity

NASA’s SOFIA Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon

Announced on October 26, NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has confirmed, for the first time, water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places.

Quirky Response to Magnetism Presents Quantum Physics Mystery

The search is on to discover new states of matter, and possibly new ways of encoding, manipulating and transporting information. One goal is to harness materials’ quantum properties for communications that go beyond what’s possible with conventional electronics. Topological insulators—materials that act mostly as insulators but carry electric current across...

Instant Systems Promotes Best Practices for Cryogenic Packaging Selection

Elizabeth Beck of Instant Systems (CSA CSM), a leading supplier of cryogenics packaging solutions, outlines the three key attributes to keep in mind when selecting the most suitable flexible packaging for a particular cryogenic application.

XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment Detects Unexplained Excess Events, Prepares Upgrades

Scientists from the international XENON collaboration announced on June 17 that data from their XENON1T detector, the world’s most sensitive dark matter experiment, shows a surprising excess of events. These events may suggest the existence of a new particle known as the solar axion or indicate previously unknown properties of...

TU Wien Researchers Discover New Magnetoelectric Effect

Physicists at TU Wien in Vienna have discovered a new magnetoelectric effect in an unexpected material: a so-called langasite made of lanthanum, gallium, silicon and oxygen doped with holmium atoms. The electrical properties of some crystals can be influenced by magnetic fields—and vice versa. These "magnetoelectric effects" can play an...

International Cryocooler Conference to be Held as All-Virtual Event

Due to the ongoing pandemic, organizers have moved the fall International Cryocoolers (ICC21) meeting conference to a totally virtual event to be held December 7-10, 2020. There will be no on-site attendance, but technical papers and poster sessions will be pre-recorded live and presented via Zoom®. Learn more and register...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Cold Compressors

A common way to provide cooling below the normal boiling point of helium (4.2K) is to reduce the pressure above the bath of liquid helium, thus also reducing the bath’s equilibrium saturation temperature. For example, to produce a 1.8K bath of liquid helium, the saturation pressure has to be reduced...

Kapitza Conductance

Kapitza conductance refers to the heat transfer between a solid surface and a fluid that covers that surface. Fundamentally, it describes the inherent difficulty in transferring energy from a solid to the fluid covering the solid surface. This phenomenon was first observed by P. L. Kapitza in 1941 while studying...

Thermosyphons

A thermosyphon (or thermosiphon) is a device that transfers heat via natural convection in a fluid. The natural convection is driven by gravity with the colder, denser fluid flowing downhill and the warmer, less dense fluid flowing back up. Thus, thermosyphons connect an object to be cooled with a reservoir...

Latest in Cryo Central

History of Cryogenics

From the Fall 1999 issue of Cold Facts magazine Millennium Breakthroughs A variety of CSA members give different perspectives on the past millennium: What were the most significant breakthroughs in cryogenics during the past millennium? Prof. R.G. Scurlock, Kryos Technology, scurlock@soton.ac.uk (“Breakthrough” = way through obstacles — Oxford English Dictionary)...

Cryobiology

Andreas Sputtek Past President Society for Cryobiology sputtek@uke.uni-hamburg.de or http://www.sputtek.de/. The word cryobiology (from the Greek words “cryo” = cold, “bios” = life, and “logos” = science) literally signifies the science of life at low temperatures. In practice, this field comprises the study of any biological material or system (e.g.,...

Cryogenic Insulation

James E. Fesmire Cryogenics Test Laboratory NASA Kennedy Space Center james.e.fesmire@nasa.gov Introduction In today’s world, the use of cryogenics and low-temperature refrigeration is taking a more and more significant role. From the food industry, transportation, energy, and medical applications to the Space Shuttle, cryogenic liquids must be stored, handled, and...

Cryogenic Treatment of Materials

F.J. Diekman Controlled Thermal Processing, Inc. info@metal-wear.com Cryogenic Processing (also called cryogenic treatment, and incorrectly “cryogenic tempering”) is a process that uses cryogenic temperatures to modify materials to enhance their performance. Cryogenic Processing involves the slow reduction in temperature of the material to at least -300°F (-185°C) and holding the...

Latest in Ask the Experts

An Issue of Pressure and Flow Rate in a Supply Tank

Please help solve this problem: A supply tank requires a vaporizer to generate sufficient pressure to pump stored fluid up into a vehicle or tank. The available head is limited as the tank level falls and it is important to minimize the system pressure drop to maintain the desired flow...

Using MLI on VJ Line Joints or Cryo Storage Tanks

When installing Multi Layer Insulation (MLI) blankets on VJ line joints or cryo storage tanks should they be wrapped and tied down tight or loose? These are usually pre-cut to size. Also should they have an access hole at the point of where the molecular sieve is installed to help...

Separated layers of ice over a pipe

I want to know that why there are different layers of ice over a pipe carrying a cryogenic fluid, each layer separated with clear marks / lines? What do these layers signify?

Using nitrogen as a cryogen

Is it possible to achieve -200˚C using nitrogen as a cryogen?

CATEGORIES