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Thermoelectric Heating Comes In From the Cold

Before architect César Martín-Gómez could send his latest thermoelectric experiment to Antarctica in 2018, he had to make sure that soldiers from the Spanish Army could get it right on the first try. In the laboratory, he could always run the experiment—a scale model of a solid-state thermoelectric heater—a second time if...

ExxonMobil to Build CCS Pilot Plant with FuelCell Energy Using Carbonate Fuel Cell Technology

ExxonMobil’s affiliate Esso Nederland BV plans to build a pilot plant at its Rotterdam manufacturing complex to test a breakthrough technology that could significantly reduce CO2 emissions from key industries. The pilot plant aims to obtain data on performance and operability of the carbonate fuel cell (CFC) technology, jointly developed with...

Artificial Intelligence and NASA’s First Robotic Lunar Rover

When NASA’s VIPER (short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) lands on the surface of the Moon on a mission to better understand the environment where NASA plans to send astronauts as part of the increasingly complex Artemis missions, its journey will be guided by the ingenuity of its human...

DARPA-Funded Research Leads to Quantum Computing Breakthrough

A team of researchers working on DARPA’s Optimization with Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum devices (ONISQ) program has created the first-ever quantum circuit with logical quantum bits (qubits), a key discovery that could accelerate fault-tolerant quantum computing and revolutionize concepts for designing quantum computer processors. The ONISQ program began in 2020 seeking...

Wyoming Already Produces 20% Of The World’s Helium, And Likely Has A Lot More

CSA April Newsletter SponsorHigh-performance, highly reliable, long-lasting storage tanks for transporting hydrogen & helium molecules around the globe.https://www.gardnercryo.com [Contact Jamie Luedtke for Newsletter Sponsorship] Home About Membership Login Calendar Cold Facts Buyer’s Guide News Publications Cryo Careers Resources Donate Join now Log in Cryogenic Society of America, Inc. Twitter Facebook...

NASA’s Webb Identifies Methane In an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed the exoplanet WASP-80 b as it passed in front of and behind its host star, revealing spectra indicative of an atmosphere containing methane gas and water vapor. While water vapor has been detected in over a dozen planets to date, until recently methane – a molecule...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Dilution Refrigerators

Dilution refrigerators are a common technique for reaching temperatures below 1K, particularly where continuous cooling at these temperatures is required. Helium exists in two stable isotopes: 4He and 3He. Naturally occurring 3He is extremely rare, constituting less than 1 part per million of helium gas. However, 3He can be manufactured,...

Oxygen Deficiency Hazards

Oxygen Deficiency Hazards (ODH) are a significant safety issue in cryogenic facilities. ODH occurs when inert gases such as nitrogen, helium or argon displace room air and thus lower the percentage of oxygen in the space below that required for human life. OSHA defines an area as oxygen deficient if...

Kelvin Temperature Scale

The Kelvin temperature scale is the principal temperature scale used in cryogenics and science. The kelvin is also one of the seven base units in the Système International d’Unités (SI) and is the unit of thermodynamic temperature. Thermodynamic temperature is a fundamental physical quantity (like mass, length or electrical current)...

Latest in Cryo Central

Primary Standards

Elie K. Track Hypres, Inc. elie@hypres.com http://www.hypres.com/ Primary standards involve the exact definition and realization of units of measurement for various quantities, time, length, mass, voltage, resistance, current, etc. International agreements based on the latest scientific knowledge define those units, and their realizations vary depending on the unit itself. For...

Shrink Fitting

Robin A. Rhodes Cryogenic Institute of New England, Inc. rrhodes@nitrofreeze.com Shrink fitting, (or “compression fitting” as it is sometimes called), is a method used to insert a pin or bushing into a housing or other assembly requiring an extremely tight tolerance fit. It can be used as an alternative to...

Telecommunications

From the Winter 2004 issue of Cold Facts magazine The recent M-Calc IV — 4th Industry Assessment workshop discussing military and commercial applications for low-cost cryocoolers, held in November in San Diego, highlighted progress being made in cryogenics as applied in telecommunications. The reliability and long lifetime of projects now...

Wind Tunnels

Dr. Robert Kilgore The development of the cryogenic wind tunnel is one of many significant breakthroughs in both cryogenics and wind-tunnel technology made during the past millennium. Interest in the development of high-speed commercial and military aircraft resulted in a review of problems of flow simulation in transonic wind tunnels...

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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