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Dippin’ Dots Launches Cryogenic Company

Dippin' Dots, known for its popular flash frozen beaded ice cream, welcomed the new year with the launch of Dippin' Dots Cryogenics, LLC, an offshoot designed to leverage its intellectual property in cryogenic processes and machinery.

Common Oxygen Catalyst Soaks Up Hydrogen Too

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (CSA CSM) have discovered that an oxygen sponge used in vehicle exhaust systems to soak up oxygen from air and store it for later use may also be a hydrogen sponge. The finding, according to the researchers, may pave the way for the design...

SESAME Delivers Its First Light

Scientists at SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) recorded first monochromatic light through the XAFS/XRF spectroscopy beamline in November, signaling the start of the laboratory’s experimental program. The beamline, SESAME’s first to come on stream, delivers X-ray light that will be used to carry out...

FAST Electron Beam Achieves Milestone Energy

In November, a team at the Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology (FAST) facility ramped up a beam of electrons to 300 million electronvolts, a double milestone event, according to the lab. For one, the beam surpassed the threshold needed to launch a new accelerator physics program at Fermi National Accelerator...

Argonne Welcomes GRETINA Back Home

A world-class gamma ray spectrometer called GRETINA has returned to Argonne National Laboratory (CSA CSM) for a second run expected to last 18 months. Scientists will use the instrument in conjunction with Argonne’s Fragment Mass Analyzer, where it will enable studies of nuclei at or near the proton drip line...

UTSW Releases First Atomic Structure From its Cryo-EM Facility

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have published a 3-D atomic structure of the ion channel found in mammals that is implicated in a rare, inherited neurodegenerative disease in humans. The work marks the first such structure determined using the university’s $17 million cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) facility.

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Helium-3

Helium-3 (3He) is one of the two stable isotopes of helium. The other is the much more common Helium-4 (4He). Neither of these isotopes should be confused with He II, which is the second liquid phase of 4He. He II was discussed in this column in the Spring 2010 edition...

Cryopumping

Cryopumping refers to the use of cryogenic temperatures to produce vacuum in enclosed spaces. More broadly, it can also refer to the removal of gases via cryogenic temperatures from a flow stream or enclosure without necessarily resulting in vacuum pressures. This is an important application of cryogenics and is used...

Thermal Acoustic Oscillations

Thermal Acoustic Oscillations (TAO) are a common event in cryogenic systems that can have significant adverse effects on the performance of the system. TAOs are sustained pressure oscillations that can occur in tubes containing gas, closed at one end (the warm end) that have a very large temperature gradient along...

Latest in Cryo Central

Cryogenic Electronics

Randall Kirschman, consulting physicist, Mountain View, California ExtElect@gmail.com Cryogenic electronics—the operation of electronic devices, circuits, and systems at cryogenic temperatures—has been a valuable technology for decades. Cryogenic electronics (also referred to as low-temperature electronics, or cold electronics) can be based on semiconductive devices, on superconductive devices, or on a combination...

Particle Physics: High Energy Physics

Cryogenics and High-Energy Physics 1. From symmetry magazine: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000627: Cryogenics is the study of how materials behave at temperatures near absolute zero. In high-energy particle accelerators, such frigid temperatures reduce the electrical resistance of wires in superconducting magnets, increasing the magnet strength and allowing faster particle acceleration. The same holds...

HTS Degaussing Systems

From the Spring 2009 issue of Cold Facts (Volume 25, Number 2): Thanks to a joint project by the US Navy and a number of industry partners, high temperature superconducting (HTS) technology is now at the heart of an advanced degaussing system aboard the USS Higgins at the naval station...

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

From http://www.superconductors.org: An area where superconductors can perform a life-saving function is in the field of biomagnetism. Doctors need a non-invasive means of determining what’s going on inside the human body. By impinging a strong superconductor-derived magnetic field into the body, hydrogen atoms that exist in the body’s water and...

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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