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ITER Cryostat Base Positioned; Project 70% Prepared for First Plasma

On May 26, the soup-bowl-shaped base of the ITER cryostat was gradually lifted from its frame, carried across the Assembly Hall to the Tokamak Building and eventually lowered into the Tokamak assembly pit. In a delicate lifting operation, the cryostat base descended into the deep concrete cylinder of the tokamak...

AFCryo, Cryomech Collaborate to Provide Helium Recovery, LN2 Generation

Beginning last year, AFCryo (CSA CSM), a division of Fabrum Solutions, and Cryomech (CSA CSM) worked collaboratively to design and supply a helium recovery system and a liquid nitrogen generation system at the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) laboratory at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. While both companies produce cryocoolers...

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. While the scientists do not claim to have found dark matter, the source of the observed unexpected rate of events is...

US Military Getting Serious about Nuclear Thermal Propulsion

The US Department of Defense is getting interested in space-based propulsion. Through a May presolicitation, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced its intent to have a flyable nuclear thermal propulsion system ready for a demonstration in 2025.

Revolutionary Microscopy Technique Sees Individual Atoms for First Time

A “game-changing” technique for imaging molecules known as cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has produced its sharpest pictures yet and, for the first time, discerned individual atoms in a protein. The breakthrough reported by the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular...

Cryo-Ops 2020 to Connect Researchers, Industry Professionals in France

Cryo-Ops 2020, the 9th edition of the International Workshop on Cryogenic Operations, will be held in Grenoble, France, November 2-4. Organized by the Département des Systèmes Basses Températures (DSBT) and Université Grenoble-Alpes, the workshop will take place at the Institut Néel campus located in the world-class scientific GIANT (Grenoble Innovation...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Dewar

A dewar is a type of cryostat named after Sir James Dewar, the researcher who first developed the concept of a vacuum insulated container with silvered walls to reflect thermal radiation. Dewar was the first to liquefy hydrogen, and he created the device to store his discovery. The thermos bottle...

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon Cryocoolers

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon (GM) cryocoolers are two of the most commonly used cryocoolers in cryogenics. Both devices have a significant industrial base and operate at a wide range of temperatures and capacities. The thermodynamic cycles for both of these cryocoolers are quite similar. The Stirling cycle consists of a compressor,...

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)

A significant commercial application of cryogenics is the liquefaction, transport and storage of natural gas. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is generally 95 percent methane with a few percent ethane and much lower concentrations of propane and butane. LNG liquefies at 111.6 K. Unlike many applications of cryogenics, the motivation for...

Latest in Cryo Central

Magnets

From “Superconductivity: Present and Future Applications” by the Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors. Particle physics uses accelerators to recreate the conditions of the early universe in an attempt to piece together the complex puzzle of how we got to where we are today. These huge machines are used...

Energy Storage

From “Superconductivity: Present and Future Applications” by the Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors. With power lines increasingly congested and prone to instability, strategic injection of brief bursts of real power can play a crucial role in maintaining grid reliability. Small-scale Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) systems, based on...

Astronomy

ASTRONOMY IN SPACE by Peter V. Mason, retired, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Visiting Associate, California Institute of Technology. Pmason@alumni.caltech.edu In thinking about the reasons to perform astronomy in space, we first consider the effect of the earth’s atmosphere. On a scale of decreasing energy, gamma rays, cosmic rays, X-rays and...

Cryocoolers

What is a Cryocooler? A mechanism that can extract heat from an object (cooler) and by doing so draw its temperature down below approximately 150 Kelvin (cryo). — (Courtesy Dr. Willy Gully) What is the difference between a Cryocooler and a Cryostat? A cryostat is any device designed to maintain...

Latest in Ask the Experts

Need help comparing chest freezers and upright freezers

Currently we use in our Biobank an upright -80 freezer to store all our samples. We are planning to buy a fully automated bio-repository storage that will do the picking of samples under restricted conditions. But in the meantime I foresee that we have to pick the samples manually. The...

Need recommendations for cryogenic vials

I am looking into standardizing our range of bio storage tubes (cryogenic vials). These will be for both blood and tissue samples and their derivatives. Any recommendations, comments on Micronics, Nalgene, Nunc and or others that are suitable for long term -80 C and -196 C storage, DNA/RNA suitable, would...

We need a custom machine for flash freezing of water

We are an ice making company and have started a new project, which is related to flash freezing of water. It is based on cryogenics technology and we need a custom made machine. I would kindly ask you to pass me a few companies who would be interested in such...

Looking for a pump suitable for cold liquids

I would like to construct a small cooling circuit (appr. 50 x 50 cm) pumping liquid at a temperature down to -120°C from a cold reservoir to the specimen to be cooled. The tubes and connections are not a problem, but does somebody know a pump (suction/compression for circulation) suitable...

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