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WEST TOKAMAK Inside and Out

Someone waking up inside of WEST, the French tokamak located barely one kilometer away from ITER, would think they had been transported into an alien spaceship—and more specifically, into the stranded star-faring vessel in the movie Alien (1979), with its strange ribcage-like walls and dull metal vertebrae. Last week, a...

US Wildlife Agency Explores Cryogenics as a Hedge Against Extinction

The world’s wildlife are facing a barrage of threats caused by climate change, from the loss of suitable habitat to dwindling food supplies. As a result, endangered species across the US are edging closer to extinction at alarming rates—and if they disappear, critical genetic information could vanish with them. In a new initiative announced on...

Powering the Quantum Revolution: Quantum Engines on the Horizon

At the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), researchers at the Quantum Systems Unit have collaborated with scientists from the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau and the University of Stuttgart to design and build an engine that is based on the special rules that particles obey at very small scales. They...

Aston University Research Pioneers Making Renewable Hydrogen and Propane Fuel Gases from Glycerol

Aston University research has shown the way forward for making renewable hydrogen and propane fuel gases from glycerol. An organic compound, glycerol is produced mainly from fats and oils and is often used in health and beauty products. With crude glycerol from biodiesel production plants cheap and abundant the researchers have explored...

High-Resolution Cryo-EM Starts Focusing on Accessibility

Structure-based designs are integral to advancing drug discovery, and in this regard, cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has emerged as a pivotal tool for achieving high-resolution structures of proteins and protein complexes. Particularly noteworthy is its utility in elucidating the structures of protein classes that have historically resisted crystallization. Cryo-EM’s pivotal...

Cryogenic Etch Re-Emerges

Cryogenic etch, sometimes called cryo etch, is one of two ways to enable deep silicon or high-aspect ratio (HAR) etches in devices, where the features are long, narrow and deep. The other and most popular method is the two-step Bosch process, where you etch out a part of the structure...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Stability

Stability refers to the ability of a device employing superconductors to remain in its superconducting state after part of the superconductor transitions back to its normal conducting state due to a disturbance. While the concept can apply to many superconducting devices—transmission lines, generators, motors, etc.—it is most commonly considered in...

Cable-in-Conduit Conductors

Cable-in-Conduit Conductors (CICC) are a common form of superconducting cable used in large-scale applications. There are several varieties of CICCs, but they all consist of many small, stabilized superconducting wires contained within a conduit through which a coolant (typically supercritical He II) flows. Figure 1 shows the cross section of...

Bayonet Coupling

A bayonet coupling is a demountable joint that allows for quick and easy connection and disconnection of cryogenic components, including transfer lines, cryostats, liquefiers and refrigerators. Bayonets provide a number of advantages, chief among them the ability to connect and disconnect the bayonets while components they connect are still at...

Latest in Cryo Central

Cryogenic Treatment of Materials

F.J. Diekman Controlled Thermal Processing, Inc. info@metal-wear.com Cryogenic Processing (also called cryogenic treatment, and incorrectly “cryogenic tempering”) is a process that uses cryogenic temperatures to modify materials to enhance their performance. Cryogenic Processing involves the slow reduction in temperature of the material to at least -300°F (-185°C) and holding the...

Cryogenics in Space

Peter Kittel University of California-Berkeley pkittel@cal.berkeley.edu Space Cryogenics is the application of cryogenics to space missions. These applications fall into two broad areas, supporting space science missions and supporting the space transportation infrastructure. Science applications: The atmosphere is opaque to much of the electro-magnetic spectrum. In space, the absence of...

Cryosurgery

Review of Cryosurgery Boris Rubinsky, PhD Hebrew University School of Science and Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Engineering 78b Ross Building Givat Ram, Jerusalem 91904 Israel rubinsky@cs.huji.ac.il as published in Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, August 2000, Vol. 2, pp. 157-187. Abstract: Cryosurgery is a surgical technique that employs freezing...

Liquefied Natural Gas

Liquefied Natural Gas as it relates to the Field of Cryogenics John W. Bonn VJ Systems, LLC johnbonn@vjsystems-lic.com Today the world is looking for a cleaner fuel and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plays a large part in achieving this goal. LNG in a liquid form is at -162°C (-259°F) and...

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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