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Civil-Engineering Work for the Major Upgrade of the LHC Completed

On January 20, CERN celebrated the completion of the civil-engineering work for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), the major upgrade of its flagship collider, the LHC. Approved in June 2016 and due to start operating in 2029, the HL-LHC will considerably improve the performance of the LHC by increasing...

Why the Hubble Telescope is Still in the Game — Even as JWST Wows

Once the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) began operations last year, the comparisons began. Astronomers and others online posted side-by-side images of the same celestial objects captured by JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope, pointing out how much crisper and more detailed those from JWST can be. But don’t count Hubble...

Unraveling the Neutrino’s Mysteries at the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

Neutrinos mind their own business. Each second, billions of these fundamental particles will pass through stars, planets, buildings, and human bodies and will rarely ever be stopped by them, like a subatomic subway crowd. It’s why they’re often described as “ghostly” or “elusive.” “If scientists could create and capture the...

Berkeley Lab Scientists Develop a Cool New Method of Refrigeration

Adding salt to a road before a winter storm changes when ice will form. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have applied this basic concept to develop a new method of heating and cooling. The technique, which they have named “ionocaloric cooling,” is described...

With Landmark Approval, Spotlight on Cryogenic Logistics Intensifies

The cell and gene therapy (CGT) industry achieved a significant milestone at the end of 2022: the first approval of an allogeneic T-cell therapy in the world. Following a positive recommendation from Europe’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), the European Commission on Monday 19th December formally approved Atara Biotherapeutics’ Ebvallo...

New Instrument Measures Supercurrent Flow with Quantum Benefits

Jigang Wang offered a quick walk-around of a new sort of microscope that can help researchers understand, and ultimately develop, the inner workings of quantum computing. Wang, an Iowa State University professor of physics and astronomy who’s also affiliated with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory, described how the instrument works in extreme...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Liquid Hydrogen

Hydrogen becomes a liquid at 20K and 1 bar. Liquid hydrogen (LH2) is an important substance in industry, transportation and research. Industrial uses of hydrogen include applications in the electronics, glass, chemical and metal processing fields. In these applications, the hydrogen is generally used as a room temperature gas but...

Superconducting Radiofrequency Cavities

Superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities represent an important application of cryogenics and superconductivity. SRF cavities are a technology for accelerating charged particle beams via the transfer of radiofrequency (RF) energy to the beams via resonant structures. As such, they are frequently found in large particle accelerators used for scientific research....

Thermal Radiation Shields

Actively cooled thermal radiation shields are a common feature of cryostats whose lowest temperature is less than 77K. These shields, which typically operate at temperatures between that of LN2 and 40K, block thermal radiation from higher temperatures from reaching lower temperature cryogenic components or fluids. Since the heat radiated from...

Latest in Cryo Central

Magnetic Levitation

From http://www.superconductors.org. Magnetic-levitation is an application where superconductors perform extremely well. Transport vehicles such as trains can be made to “float” on strong superconducting magnets, virtually eliminating friction between the train and its tracks. Not only would conventional electromagnets waste much of the electrical energy as heat, they would have...

Superconductivity

From Superpower website. History of Superconductivity Superconductivity was discovered in 1911 by the Dutch physicist, Heike Kammerlingh Onnes when he was able to liquefy helium by cooling it to 4 Kelvin, or -452°F. This enabled him to cool other materials close to absolute zero and investigate their electrical properties. He...

Medical Applications of Cryogenics

Neutron Therapy Cryogenics is at the heart of nuclear accelerators. Accelerators such as Fermilab’s Tevatron make neutron therapy for cancer possible. From Fermilab Today 4/20/09: Fermilab currently offers neutron therapy. But staff at Fermilab designed and built the proton accelerator used by the nation’s first hospital-based treatment center to use...

Nuclear Physics

Al Zeller National Superconducting Cyclotron Lab (NSCL) at Michigan State University zeller@nscl.msu.edu Cryogenics has a long history in nuclear physics. The technology has its origins in the use of cold traps for maintaining a vacuum, which is required to prevent beam loss and for generating high voltages used in acceleration....

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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