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DOE Announces New Lab Consortia to Advance Hydrogen, Fuel Cells

On June 23, the US Department of Energy announced that it will invest up to $100 million over five years in two new DOE National Laboratory-led consortia to advance hydrogen and fuel cell technologies research and development. One consortium will seek to achieve large-scale, affordable electrolyzers which use electricity to...

Rice Physicist Earns Grant to Study Magnetism

On June 23, the Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences awarded Rice University experimental physicist Ming Yi a five-year grant to explore the details of magnetism in two-dimensional materials. She and her colleagues seek to learn the origin of magnetism in bulk materials that are exfoliated for use...

Bluefors, Physics World Offer Cryogenics in Quantum Technologies Webinar

Bluefors, a Finnish cryogenics company focused on the quantum computing industry, and Physics World are jointly presenting a free quantum computing-centered webinar open to the public. The live "Next Generation of Cryogenics: Tailored for Quantum Technologies" will be presented at 3 p.m. BST/5 p.m. EET on July 2, 2020. It...

Electricity Transmission Reaches Even Higher Intensities at CERN

In CERN’s superconducting equipment testing hall, an innovative transmission line has set a new record for the transport of electricity. The 60-meter long link has transported a total of 54,000 amperes (54 kA, or 27 kA in either direction). The line has been developed for the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), the...

Scientists Use Pressure to Make Liquid Magnetism Breakthrough

Using two flat-top diamonds and a lot of pressure, scientists at Argonne National Laboratory (CSA CSM) have forced a magnetic crystal into a spin liquid state, which may lead to insights into high temperature superconductivity and quantum computing.

CERN Researchers Create, Study New Exotic Atom at Paul Scherrer Institute

A team of researchers from CERN’s Atomic Spectroscopy and Collisions Using Slow Antiprotons (ASACUSA) collaboration have taken experimental equipment from CERN to the Paul Scherrer Institute near Zurich to create a theoretically predicted, but never before verified, exotic atom and made first measurements of how it absorbs and resonates with...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Mixed Refrigerant Cycles

Most cryogenic refrigeration systems, both large scale systems and cryocoolers, use helium as a working fluid. There are a number of advantages to helium, not the least of which is that helium remains a fluid down to the lowest achievable temperatures. In order to freeze helium, pressures of over 20...

Fountain Pumps and He II Phase Separators

Helium II (He II), the second liquid phase of the 4He isotope described in this column in Cold Facts Spring 2010 (http://2csa.us/he2), can be modeled as consisting of two interpenetrating fluids. One, the superfluid component, has zero viscosity and entropy and the other, the normal fluid component, has nonzero viscosity...

Turboexpanders

A vital technology in the refrigerators and liquefiers described in Cold Facts Volume 31 Number 3 is that of turboexpanders. These devices are rotating machines in which the process fluid (e.g., helium) does work against the turboexpander while moving from high pressure to a lower pressure and thus is cooled....

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

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?

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