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Researchers Develop Circuit Refrigerator for Quantum Computers

Cooling has proven to be a major concern for engineers developing quantum computers, but now a research team at Finland's Aalto University says it has invented a quantum circuit refrigerator that could reduce errors in quantum computing. Quantum computers differ from the computers that we use in that, instead of...

Ball Aerospace Developing Cryostat for GUSTO

NASA has chosen Ball Aerospace to design and build a cryostat for its Galactic/Extragalactic Ultralong Duration Balloon (ULDB) Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory mission, or GUSTO. The mission, led by the University of Arizona, will measure emissions from the interstellar medium, helping scientists to determine the life cycle of interstellar gas in...

Nikkiso Acquires Cryogenic Industries

Nikkiso Co., Ltd. has announced its acquisition of Cryogenic Industries (CSA CSM), a group of product and service companies supporting both liquefaction and separation plants for air gases and small-scale plants for LNG liquefaction. The deal is worth an estimated $440 million and is expected to close in August.

CERN Celebrates Linac 4 Completion

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) celebrated the completion of its Linac 4 during a ceremony on May 9. The new accelerator is expected to allow the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to reach higher luminosity by 2021. The machine is almost 90 meters long, sits 12 meters below the...

Pulsating Heat Pipes Hold Promise for Future Space Flight

As space flight missions move away from tanks filled with cryogenic liquids towards cryocoolers to provide cooling for cryogenic payloads, new heat transport technologies are needed to cool distributed systems. Researchers have recently investigated pulsating (or oscillating) heat pipes (PHPs) at laboratories and universities in several countries. Possible applications for...

Advancing Cryogenic Temperature Instrumentation

Ryan Oliver explores the evolution of the techniques used to measure and control temperature since this time, with a focus on cryogenic temperatures as a tool, rather than techniques used by those working on defining temperature scales.

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Refrigerators and Liquefiers

Two of the most common terms used in cryogenics are “refrigerator” and “liquefier.” These terms describe similar and, as will be seen, in some cases identical components. A refrigerator provides cooling (that is, absorbs heat) at cryogenic temperatures. Refrigerators typically put a working fluid (such as helium) through one of...

Air Separation

Air separation is one of the largest, as well as earliest, industrial applications of cryogenics. In this process, cryogenic temperatures are used to separate air into its constituent gases: nitrogen (78.08%), oxygen (20.95%), argon (0.93%) and carbon dioxide (0.3%). Trace gases such as krypton, neon, xenon and helium total far...

Coefficient of Performance and Figure of Merit

The coefficient of performance (COP) is used to describe the effectiveness of refrigerators, including those operating at cryogenic temperatures. The COP is defined as the amount of heat removed at the cryogenic operating temperature of the refrigerator divided by the amount of work that must be applied to remove the...

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...