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

BioCision and Brooks Automation launch cryogenic biospecimen handling and transport system

BioCision and Brooks Automation recently launched the CryoPod Carrier, a jointly developed liquid nitrogen-based system for the safe, reliable and protected handling and transport of cryogenic biospecimens. The portable data-logging carrier was unveiled on May 6 at the annual meeting of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories in...

US-CERN agreement paves way for a new era of scientific discovery

A new agreement between the United States and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) signed on May 7 will pave the way for renewed collaboration in particle physics, promising to yield new insights into fundamental particles and the nature of matter and our universe.

Natural SUSY’s last stand

In a paper entitled “Lessons and prospects from the pMSSM after LHC Run I” published in Physical Review D, researchers M. Cahill-Rowley, J. L. Hewett, A. Ismail and T. G. Rizzo report that, while the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)’s first run did not provide evidence of natural Supersymmetry (SUSY), SUSY...

LHC sees first low energy collisions

On May 5, low energy protons met in the hearts of the four Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments at CERN. These test collisions will help the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb collaborations calibrate their detectors in preparation for the high energy collisions scheduled for early June.

Featuring Women in Cryogenics and Superconductivity

Several years ago, Cold Facts had a cover story on women in cryogenics and superconductivity. We thought it was time to introduce our readers to several more women who are excelling in our fields and find out more about their experiences in areas where they are still pretty much in...

Research and Development of Large-Scale Cryogenic Air Separation in China

Experts from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou Hangyang Co. Ltd. and Shanghai Jiao Tong University detail the history of the research and development of large-scale cryogenic air separation in China from 1953, in which the production capacity of an ASU was only 20 m3/h O2, to the present. Over 60 years of...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Dewar

A dewar is a type of cryostat named after Sir James Dewar, the researcher who first developed the concept of a vacuum insulated container with silvered walls to reflect thermal radiation. Dewar was the first to liquefy hydrogen, and he created the device to store his discovery. The thermos bottle...

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon Cryocoolers

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon (GM) cryocoolers are two of the most commonly used cryocoolers in cryogenics. Both devices have a significant industrial base and operate at a wide range of temperatures and capacities. The thermodynamic cycles for both of these cryocoolers are quite similar. The Stirling cycle consists of a compressor,...

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)

A significant commercial application of cryogenics is the liquefaction, transport and storage of natural gas. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is generally 95 percent methane with a few percent ethane and much lower concentrations of propane and butane. LNG liquefies at 111.6 K. Unlike many applications of cryogenics, the motivation for...

Latest in Cryo Central

Magnets

From “Superconductivity: Present and Future Applications” by the Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors. Particle physics uses accelerators to recreate the conditions of the early universe in an attempt to piece together the complex puzzle of how we got to where we are today. These huge machines are used...

Energy Storage

From “Superconductivity: Present and Future Applications” by the Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors. With power lines increasingly congested and prone to instability, strategic injection of brief bursts of real power can play a crucial role in maintaining grid reliability. Small-scale Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) systems, based on...

Astronomy

ASTRONOMY IN SPACE by Peter V. Mason, retired, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Visiting Associate, California Institute of Technology. Pmason@alumni.caltech.edu In thinking about the reasons to perform astronomy in space, we first consider the effect of the earth’s atmosphere. On a scale of decreasing energy, gamma rays, cosmic rays, X-rays and...

Cryocoolers

What is a Cryocooler? A mechanism that can extract heat from an object (cooler) and by doing so draw its temperature down below approximately 150 Kelvin (cryo). — (Courtesy Dr. Willy Gully) What is the difference between a Cryocooler and a Cryostat? A cryostat is any device designed to maintain...

Latest in Ask the Experts