Cold Facts Digital – Page 63 – The go-to place for Cryogenics and Superconductivity

Honeywell’s Fuel Cell Powertrain Project Comes Alive

Honeywell Aerospace is confident that an EU-funded consortium it is leading can deliver a “commercially viable” high-power fuel cell powertrain for regional aircraft applications. Ground tests of the entire 1MW propulsion system – including an electric motor – will be performed in 2026 under the Clean Aviation-backed Newborn project. Although the...

The Moon is Too Hot and Too Cold; Now It Could Be Just Right

With temperatures on the moon ranging from -410° to a scorching 250° F, it’s an understatement to say that humans will need habitats with heat and air conditioning to survive there long term. But heating and cooling systems won’t be effective enough to support habitats for lunar exploration or even...

A World-First in HTS Magnets

Oxford-based Tokamak Energy has built a world-first set of new generation high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets to be assembled and tested in fusion power plant-relevant scenarios. Creating clean, sustainable fusion energy requires strong magnetic fields to confine and control the extremely hot, positively-charged hydrogen fuel, which becomes a plasma several...

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...

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...

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...

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

Cryogenic Electronics

Randall Kirschman, consulting physicist, Mountain View, California ExtElect@gmail.com Cryogenic electronics—the operation of electronic devices, circuits, and systems at cryogenic temperatures—has been a valuable technology for decades. Cryogenic electronics (also referred to as low-temperature electronics, or cold electronics) can be based on semiconductive devices, on superconductive devices, or on a combination...

Particle Physics: High Energy Physics

Cryogenics and High-Energy Physics 1. From symmetry magazine: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000627: Cryogenics is the study of how materials behave at temperatures near absolute zero. In high-energy particle accelerators, such frigid temperatures reduce the electrical resistance of wires in superconducting magnets, increasing the magnet strength and allowing faster particle acceleration. The same holds...

HTS Degaussing Systems

From the Spring 2009 issue of Cold Facts (Volume 25, Number 2): Thanks to a joint project by the US Navy and a number of industry partners, high temperature superconducting (HTS) technology is now at the heart of an advanced degaussing system aboard the USS Higgins at the naval station...

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

From http://www.superconductors.org: An area where superconductors can perform a life-saving function is in the field of biomagnetism. Doctors need a non-invasive means of determining what’s going on inside the human body. By impinging a strong superconductor-derived magnetic field into the body, hydrogen atoms that exist in the body’s water and...

Latest in Ask the Experts

Presence of alloying elements in tool steels

I want to expand my knowledge of cryogenics in general and tool steels in particular. Specifically, I am keenly interested in learning about the presence of alloying elements in tool steels and how their presence in various combinations affects the performance of tool steels after cryogenic treatment.

Pros and cons of barcoding samples

I was wondering if I could ask for input on pros and cons of barcoding. We are in the process of trying to decide if we should start barcoding our samples and I’m just not sure if this is feasible for our organization. We have numerous sites all over the...

Purity level of helium gas stream in cryo plant purification system

I would like to know what the principal methods and the relative instrumentation to check the purity level of helium gas stream in the purification system of a common helium cryogenic plant are. What principles are these instruments based on? And what are their principal characteristics?

LN2 for cryopreservation through controlled rate freezing of samples

I am the cryogenic specialist for a stem cell bank in Greece. I am trying to find the minimum requirements (purity, humidity, etc.) of liquid nitrogen for cryopreservation through controlled rate freezing of biological samples.

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