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NASA Invests in Aerospace Technology Development

NASA has selected eight technology proposals for investment that have the potential to transform future aerospace missions, introduce new capabilities and significantly improve current approaches to building and operating aerospace systems. This year’s portfolio addresses a range of leading-edge concepts, including a method to produce “solar white” coatings for scattering...

IBM Looks to the Cloud for Quantum Computing

IBM scientists have built a quantum computer system that users can access through the cloud on any desktop or mobile device to run algorithms and experiments. It's called the IBM Quantum Experience and it's powered by quantum processors with five superconducting qubits. Signals are sent in and out of a...

Electrons Trapped in Liquid Helium Show Promise as Quantum Bits

A team of researchers from the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory (CSA CSM) and Yale University has developed a method to trap and manipulate electrons, opening the door for using the particles as quantum bits. Electrons represent an ideal quantum bit, according to the team, with a "spin" that...

NASA Releases Dozens of Patents into Public Domain

NASA has released 56 formerly patented agency technologies into the public domain, making its government developed technologies freely available for unrestricted commercial use. Additionally, a searchable database is also available that catalogs thousands of expired NASA patents already in the public domain.

Cryogenically Cooled Heat Pipes Used for Refrigeration

Scientists at Brunel University London, in collaboration with Air Products PLC, have engineered a new method to build freezers using advanced cryogenically cooled heat pipe technology. The units, capable of reaching temperatures as low as -180 °C, are likely to be used for medical storage, cooling and storing samples ranging...

Fermilab Breaks Ground on Short-Baseline Near Detector Building

Fermilab broke ground on April 27 on the building that will house the future Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND). The particle detector is one of three that scientists will use to search for the sterile neutrino, a hypothesized particle that scientists say could not only increase understanding for neutrinos already known,...

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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...

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...