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20th Year of Particle Smashups Underway at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

The 20th year of particle collisions is underway at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a US Department of Energy Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The particle smashups will continue over a range of collision energies through the first half of 2020,...

Coldest Chemical Reaction Ever Transforms Future Observations

A team led by Kang-Kuen Ni, associate professor of chemistry, chemical biology and physics at Harvard, achieved the coldest chemical reaction in the known universe in late November. Forcing two ultracold molecules to meet and react, they broke and formed the coldest bonds in the history of molecular couplings. The...

Will Cryogenically Freezing Yourself and Coming Back to Life Ever Be Reality?

When people die, many things can be done with their bodies––embalming, cremation, donation to science and so on—but some people will choose to have their dead bodies, or parts thereof, frozen with the expectation that technology will advance enough to bring them back to life. Reactions, a video series from...

NASA Breaks SLS Liquid Hydrogen Tank to Test Extreme Limits

Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville AL deliberately pushed the world's largest rocket fuel tank beyond its design limits to really understand its breaking point. The test version of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket's liquid hydrogen tank withstood more than 260% of expected flight loads over...

Hyundai Nexo Sets Hydrogen Fuel Cell Distance Record

Celebrity explorer Bertrand Piccard drove Hyundai’s Nexo SUV 484 miles across France in November, setting a new world record for the longest distance traveled in a hydrogen-powered vehicle on a single tank. Within the category of zero-emissions options, the hydrogen fuel cell is constantly being eclipsed by electric power. But...

Jefferson Lab Scientists Are Designing Accelerators that Could Help Clean the Environment

Physicists at Jefferson Laboratory are working on two accelerator designs they hope could change water treatment. It’s been 30 years since a pilot project in Miami-Dade County found that blasting wastewater with electrons could clean it up—from microorganisms to harsh chemicals. Fay Hannon is designing a low-energy, portable accelerator for...

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

Air Separation and Liquefaction

by Nils Tellier, PE, President, EPSIM Corporation (CSA CSM) nils@epsim.us All illustrations courtesy EPSIM Corporation Background History of Air Separation and Liquefaction This section builds on a rich history of methods to develop deep refrigeration and cryogenic liquefaction during the 19th Century. You are encouraged to read Cryo Central’s History...

Bose-Einstein Condensate

A Bose-Einstein condensate, first proposed in 1925 by Albert Einstein based on work done by Satyendra Nath Bose (the same Bose from whom the term boson is derived), is a super-cold state of matter in which almost all of the individual atoms have “condensed” down to the lowest possible quantum...

Cold Technology for Pest Control

While it does not reach temperatures cold enough to be called cryogenic, carbon dioxide snow is at the heart of a new way of dealing with unwanted pests. It utilizes a quick freezing process that takes advantage of the properties of carbon dioxide snow and has a number of benefits...

Cryogenic Finishing

The following 3 articles discuss the uses and procedures of various type of cryogenic finishing. 1) By Robin A. Rhodes, Cryogenic Institute of New England, Inc. rrhodes@nitrofreeze.com Cryogenic Deflashing is employed to remove undesired residual mold flash that remains on molded parts after they are removed or ejected from the...

Latest in Ask the Experts

Seeking recommendations for commercial sensors

I would like to measure vibrations in small LHe cryostats. Could anybody recommend commercial sensors which would be suitable for the purpose? I am interested in the frequency range between 1Hz and a couple of KHz, with particular attention to the low frequency side.

Estimating cost of carbon steel, pure helium storage tanks

In order to perform an indicative cost assessment of our helium cryogenic plant (still in the design phase), I need an estimation of the cost of carbon steel room temperature pure helium storage tanks. The storage pressure is 20 bar. Can anyone give me suggestions about how to estimate the...

Supplier of pressure sensor that works down to 4.2 K

In an actual experiment we would like to measure the static pressure in a cryostat in the range between one and four bar. Therefore we are looking for some (more or less) cheap pressure sensors that work in liquid helium in the pressure range up to five bar. Unfortunately all...

Looking for reference/textbook suggestions

Can you suggest some reference textbooks for practical thermodynamics applications in cryogenic fields? I need textbooks with cryogenics calculations and examples, dimensioning procedures, second principle applications in cryogenics, heat load calculations, cryogenic pump application, etc. Do such books exist? Does any similar source of information exist?

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