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First Hydrogen-Powered Bus Deployed in France

A hydrogen-powered passenger bus has been deployed in France for the first time, a step toward the country’s goal of a 100% clean-fueled bus fleet. With a range of 300km, the bus will run between the towns of Versailles and Jouy-en-Josas in the Yvelines region, and refuel its hydrogen tank...

Quest Thermal Group MLI Enters Space

Quest Thermal Group’s integrated multilayer insulation (IMLI) is currently being used in space on the ISS with NASA's RRM3 flight experiment and on the NASA/Ball Aerospace GPIM spacecraft. The group is also currently designing IMLI for use on the Lucy spacecraft—scheduled to go to Jupiter's asteroids—and is expected to have...

Neutrino Energy to Power IoT Devices

In 2015, it was discovered that neutrinos have mass, so in theory, they can impact matter and give up some of their kinetic energy. Neutrino Energy Group is developing neutrino-based power generators by designing materials that can convert the kinetic energy of a neutrino into electricity. Such devices could be...

A Universal Symbol for Cryogenic Hazards

CSA was recently asked about a universal symbol to denote cryogenic hazards. Our contacts at NIST have helped answer those inquiries. While OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) does not provide a symbol, a cryogen “shipped” container would be labeled with the Gas Cylinder pictogram and a description of the...

Innovative Accelerator Achieves Full Energy Recovery

An innovative particle accelerator designed and built by scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cornell University has achieved a significant milestone that could greatly enhance the efficiency of future particle accelerators. After sending a particle beam for one pass through the accelerator, machine components recovered...

Hydrogen-Powered Bicycles Offer New Electromobility Concept

Pragma Industries has received an order for 1,000 bicycles from Chilean president Sebastian Pinera after 200 hydrogen bicycles were made available to journalists and world leaders at the recent G7 summit in Biarritz. The company’s founder, Pierre Forté, envisions that the bicycles will have an environmental impact in developing countries.

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

Seeking recommendations for commercial sensors

I would like to measure vibrations in small LHe cryostats. Could anybody recommend commercial sensors which would be suitable for the purpose? I am interested in the frequency range between 1Hz and a couple of KHz, with particular attention to the low frequency side.

Estimating cost of carbon steel, pure helium storage tanks

In order to perform an indicative cost assessment of our helium cryogenic plant (still in the design phase), I need an estimation of the cost of carbon steel room temperature pure helium storage tanks. The storage pressure is 20 bar. Can anyone give me suggestions about how to estimate the...

Supplier of pressure sensor that works down to 4.2 K

In an actual experiment we would like to measure the static pressure in a cryostat in the range between one and four bar. Therefore we are looking for some (more or less) cheap pressure sensors that work in liquid helium in the pressure range up to five bar. Unfortunately all...

Looking for reference/textbook suggestions

Can you suggest some reference textbooks for practical thermodynamics applications in cryogenic fields? I need textbooks with cryogenics calculations and examples, dimensioning procedures, second principle applications in cryogenics, heat load calculations, cryogenic pump application, etc. Do such books exist? Does any similar source of information exist?

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