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OPW Acquires Demaco in Cryogenics Consolidation

OPW announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Demaco, a provider of vacuum jacketed piping and other cryogenic equipment for gas producers, research institutions, EPC contractors, and end-users of liquefied gasses within various end-markets. Demaco will become part of the OPW Clean Energy Solutions business unit.  Established in...

Into the Fast Lane for Quantum Innovation

The nascent quantum technology supply chain has reached an inflection point as companies large and small – among them household names like Google, Microsoft and IBM as well as a new wave of ambitious start-up ventures – shift gears to translate their applied research endeavours into at-scale commercial opportunities in...

Viewing Fast Vortex Motion in a Superconductor

  S. Nakamura et al. [1] Peering into the vortex. Top: Vortices form in a superconducting film (gray) in the presence of an external magnetic field provided by a coil. The field generates a shielding current in the film (pink). An infrared pulse transmitted through the superconducting film provides information about the vortices’...

KLM Partners With ZeroAvia For Liquid Hydrogen-Powered Demo Flight

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has agreed to perform a flight demonstration of ZeroAvia’s ZA2000 hydrogen-electric engines in 2026. “We’re going to do a groundbreaking demonstration flight between two airports using liquid hydrogen fuel,” KLM CityHopper MD Maarten Koopmans says at the Farnborough Airshow. “KLM wants to be a front-runner in this field, and taking...

BHEX Leverages Cryogenics to Capture Black Holes

Introduction to BHEX-The Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) is a mission that will discover and measure a black hole’s photon ring, capturing light that has orbited a black hole. BHEX will extend the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) into space, producing the sharpest images in the history of astronomy, whilst operating a...

Looking Backward and Forward

Since 2018 I have been writing this column on pioneers in cryogenics. So far, a total of 30 people have been profiled. With this column taking a slightly different direction in the future (more below), it’s worth asking if these pioneers had anything in common. Here are a few common...

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Refrigerators and Liquefiers

Two of the most common terms used in cryogenics are “refrigerator” and “liquefier.” These terms describe similar and, as will be seen, in some cases identical components. A refrigerator provides cooling (that is, absorbs heat) at cryogenic temperatures. Refrigerators typically put a working fluid (such as helium) through one of...

Air Separation

Air separation is one of the largest, as well as earliest, industrial applications of cryogenics. In this process, cryogenic temperatures are used to separate air into its constituent gases: nitrogen (78.08%), oxygen (20.95%), argon (0.93%) and carbon dioxide (0.3%). Trace gases such as krypton, neon, xenon and helium total far...

Coefficient of Performance and Figure of Merit

The coefficient of performance (COP) is used to describe the effectiveness of refrigerators, including those operating at cryogenic temperatures. The COP is defined as the amount of heat removed at the cryogenic operating temperature of the refrigerator divided by the amount of work that must be applied to remove the...

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...

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...