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Air Liquide Upgrades, Expands Texas Complex

Air Liquide has completed a major upgrade and expansion of its Bayport industrial complex located just east of Houston. The complex covers 88 acres of land and supplies oxygen, nitrogen, argon, hydrogen, electricity, steam and industrial and demineralized water to customers in many industries. The facility is central to Air...

Scientists Observe Elusive Cooper Pairs, Confirm 50-Year-Old Prediction

An international scientific team has produced the first direct evidence of a Cooper pair density wave, a state of electronic matter first predicted by theorists in 1964. The discovery, described in a paper published in Nature, may provide key insights into the workings of high temperature superconductors.

Fermilab Welcomes Baby Bison with Naming Puns

Fermilab welcomed its first baby bison of 2016 on April 26 and by the next day a herd of its social media followers were birthing puns in a tongue-in-cheek #BisonNaming contest. Fermilab suggested the first name, Neil EatdeGrasse Bison, and followers took it from there. Suggestions included Higgs Bison, Bisotron,...

Researchers Look to Super-Spintronics for Future Computing

A University of Cambridge led project aims to develop a new architecture for future computing based on superconducting spintronics. Researchers on the project, dubbed Superspin, say it will pave the way for a new generation of ultralow power supercomputers capable of processing vast amounts of data at a fraction of...

Cryogenic Heat Exchangers for Space Exploration

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is perhaps one of the most cost efficient satellite launching organizations in the world today. The two principal series of launch vehicles it uses are the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the Geo Synchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV). GSLV has three stages, the third of...

Around the Labs – A Road Trip to Cryogenic Facilities

Cryogenics remains an integral part of research conducted at several Department of Energy National Labs, from novel cryostats used to cool telescope equipment to the dilution refrigerators driving nanoparticle studies. SLAC – Menlo Park CA The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, for example, is no stranger to cryogenics. Researchers there are...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Two-Phase Flows

Two-phase flows are those flows in which there is a mixture of two physical states (solid, liquid or vapor). In cryogenic applications, such flows are almost always a mixture of a cryogenic liquid along with its corresponding vapor. A mixture of liquid helium and helium vapor would be a typical...

Supercritical Fluids

A supercritical fluid is defined as a substance whose temperature and pressure exceed those of its critical point. Every pure substance has a critical point that is defined in thermodynamic space by a critical temperature and a corresponding critical pressure. For example, the critical point for helium has a critical...

Brayton Cycle

The Brayton cycle is one of the many thermodynamic cycles used to generate cooling at cryogenic temperatures. Strictly speaking, when referring to cooling we should call this the reverse Brayton cycle as the original Brayton cycle describes the process of power generation or propulsion via a gas turbine. In many...

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

Power usage: cryogenic systems vs. regular refrigerators

A recent project highlighted to me that closed cycle cryogenic cooling systems use far more electrical power to reduce temperatures by a few watts than regular refrigerators. I am sure it must be something to do with the extra difficulty of removing the heat from the liquid nitrogen or similar...

Redundancy strategies for mechanical -80C freezers

I was wondering what kind of redundancy strategies are people using for their mechanical -80C freezers? I am aware of the following. Please add if you are doing something different. 1) 1 Backup freezer for every 10 freezers – Empty and maintained at -80C at all times 2) Backup C02...

Safety guidelines for handling cryo vessels of nitrogen

I am looking for any safety guidelines for handling cryogenic vessels of nitrogen indoors and outdoors. I am especially interested in recommendations for area monitors to detect leaks, flow detection devices, etc.

Method to move components in a cryogenic environment

Does anyone know of a method with which to reliably move components in a cryogenic environment? We are interested in moving detectors in a cryogenically cooled (2K) vacuum chamber, which is contained within a larger cryostat/isolation vacuum with thermal shields. As the desired horizontal or vertical displacement is between 10...

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