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

ORNL Team Recognized as Highly Cited Researchers

Fifteen scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (CSA CSM) have been named 2018 Highly Cited Researchers. The list recognizes scientists for exceptional performance, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top one percent by citations.

LHC Ends Second Season, Prepares for New Achievements

Expert team members from CERN turned off the Large Hadron Collider in early December, ending the successful second run of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. The complex will be shut down for about two years, according to CERN, enabling both major upgrades and renovation work.

MIT Discovers Material that Performs as Both Topological Insulator and Superconductor

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reports that the exact same material can be turned into either a topological insulator or a superconductor. The new findings reveal that in a single-layer crystal form, at temperatures from less than 1 K to the liquid nitrogen range of -320°F, hosts three distinct phases,...

Cool Innovations for Clean Energy

Cryogenic technology is making it possible for liquid air, nitrogen and methane—including methane derived from cow slurry—to play roles in combating global warming. Read more about these efforts in coverage from physicsworld.

Why Physics Needs a Post-LHC Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, and scientists there have pushed the frontiers of particle physics past old boundaries, achieving higher energies and greater numbers of collisions than ever before. So far all the colliders up through the LHC have revealed particles that behave...

Pushing the Extra Cold Frontiers of Superconducting Science

Measuring the properties of superconducting materials in magnetic fields at temperatures close to absolute zero is considered difficult but necessary by many researchers, helping them understand quantum properties.

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Joule-Thomson Effect

The Joule-Thomson (JT) effect is a thermodynamic process that occurs when a fluid expands from high pressure to low pressure at constant enthalpy (an isenthalpic process). Such a process can be approximated in the real world by expanding a fluid from high pressure to low pressure across a valve. Under...

Current Leads

One of the challenges of using superconducting magnets is the connection of the magnet to a room temperature power supply. This is accomplished via current leads. The trick is that current leads should ideally have a low heat leak, since they connect room temperature to cryogenic temperature, while at the...

Multilayer Insulation

Multilayer insulation (also referred to as superinsulation) is a key component in the reduction of heat leak to cryogenic systems due to thermal radiation. MLI consists of a series of uncooled reflective surfaces placed in the vacuum space between two surfaces, one warmer than the other. Generally speaking, for ideal...

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

Dry ice vs. LN2 for preserving tissue

I was wondering if anyone could provide feedback/data on whether it is best in terms of preserving tissue quality to freeze tissue in OCT using dry ice versus liquid nitrogen?

Are there lists of existing biorepositories?

We are a relatively new Biorepository that was developed as part of a large breast cancer epidemiology study, and thus far we have accumulated DNA on over 8000 women along with extensive questionnaire, mammography, and case status data. I was wondering, are there lists of existing Biorepositories with their contents?...

Heat flux value for inner vessel when vacuum insulation fails

To size a relief valve for a LN2 cryostat I have to know “worse case” boil-off rate when vacuum insulation failed and inner vessel with LN2 is in direct contact with room temperature air at 300K. So, I am looking for a heat flux value (watt/m2) to LN2 inner vessel...

Trying to design a system to store ammonia at -33°C

I am working on a project where we are trying to design a system to store ammonia at -33°C. In order to size the compressors to maintain the ammonia in the liquid state, I need to estimate the heat gained from the environment including the radiation from the sun and...

CATEGORIES