Why are safety reliefs installed on all cryogenic liquid oxygen, nitrogen, argon or carbon dioxide fill hoses?

Safeties are not only installed on fill hoses. They are also installed on any cryogenic line that is sealed on both sides. This is because cryogenic liquid trapped in a line will vaporize and

expand exponentially, creating tremendous pressure in hoses, piping or tubing. This expanding liquid nitrogen, oxygen, argon, or CO2 can easily build enough pressure to cause

the line or hose to explode with great force. This is a danger that is easily overlooked and one that is not obvious to someone without

prior knowledge or training. Whether you are filling medical oxygen bases, transferring liquid from one DOT4 vessel to another, or otherwise filling from a bulk source, it is essential to have a relief for expanding

vapor. Never forget to be sure the hose you are using to fill has a properly rated safety relief

installed somewhere between the valves or other connections that could trap liquid!http://cryonews.blogspot.com/

Clarence Birdseye• Designer of freezing equipment, father of frozen food industry in US• 1912-15, field naturalist for US Biological Survey in Canada, saw Eskimos

place fresh fish on ice, expose to wind, freeze solid. Fish thawed and eatenmuch later retained all fresh characteristics (flesh quality, taste)

• Realized flash freezing prevented formation of large crystals, no damage tocellular structure of food

• Worked to perfect freezing methods from 1917 - 1925• Patent for wax-packing dressed foods in cartons were frozen between two

flat refrigerated surfaces under pressure• 1930 First retail sale of frozen foods, Springfield MA• Contracted production of retail display

units for grocery stores• Held 300 patents

•Invented by Donald Glaser in 1952•Glaser won the Nobel Prize in Physics for this in 1960

•Glaser was POSSIBLY inspired by bubbles in beer

•Vessel filled with a clear , superheated liquid•Normally filled with Liquid Hydrogen because of its simplicityand low interference with the high-energy process being studied

•Used to detect electrically charged particles•The device uses a piston in a chamber to decrease pressure resulting in

bubbles forming. The bubble density is proportional to a particle’s energy loss.

•Chamber is in a magnetic field to force the charged particles to move in a helical path.

•Led to the discovery of weak neutral current, establishing the electroweak theory

•Being replaced by wire chambers and spark chambers.

Sources:Cryogenic Engineering Text BookWikipedia

Ted Williams The infamous baseball player died on July 5, 2002. Although his will stated that he wanted to be cremated, his children decided to have him cryogenically frozen at Alcor, a crogenics facility.

Since this time, there has been much controversy over this decision to cryogenically freeze Williams, including a lawsuit by the other siblings, and stories of his frozen head being damaged during a handling process.

Celebrities use the technology of cryogenics to suspend their bodies and cells with the possibility of someday being unfrozen and capable of living on.

Daniel Amariutei, PHY 6555C, HW1: Lowest temperatures achieved, pK-range.

A view into the vacuum chamber where sodium atoms were cooled.

2003: 500pK

MIT team headed by Nobel laureate

Wolfgang Ketterle, has cooled a sodium

gas to 500 picokelvin using lasers and a

novel way of confining atoms, which

they call a "gravito-magnetic trap" - the

magnetic fields act together with

gravitational forces to keep the atoms

trapped.

2008: 100pK

Helsinki University of Technology,

YKI-group of the Low Temperature

Laboratory has cooled a rhodium sample

to 100 picokelvin using an apparatus

consisting of several consecutive cooling

stages.

The central part is dilution refrigerator

reaching a temperature of 3 mK, and two

nuclear cooling stages utilizing the

method of adiabatic nuclear

demagnetization (first nuclear stage

cools to 50mK and the second nuclear

stage cools in the pK range).

September 2003 – MIT Team Achieves Lowest Temperature –

500 pK• Accomplished by Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle, who

discovered Bose-Einstein Condenstate in 1995, and Dr. David Pritchard both from MIT

• Cooled sodium gas to 500pK, 6 times lower than the previous record

• Used the same process to cool the atoms that led to the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics shared by Ketterleand his colleagues Drs. Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman from the University of Colorado

• To contain the gas, they invented a novel way of confining atoms they termed a “gravito-magnetic trap,” using magnetic fields in conjunction with gravitational forces to contain them

Source: http://cua.mit.edu/ketterle_group/Press/press_picokelvin/Universe%20Today%20-%20Coldest%20Temperature%20Ever%20Created.pdf

Low Temperature Record Reached in 2003

Wolfgang Ketterle and colleagues at MIT have succeeded in cooling a Bose condensate of sodium atoms down to a low temperature six times lower than the previous record for Bose condensates. The lowest temperature the team measured was 450 pK.1

As of November 2000, temperatures below 100 pKwere reported at the Helsinki University of Technology. However this was the temperature of nuclear-spin.2

1. A Leanhardt et al. 2003 Science 301 1513;2. http://ltl.tkk.fi/wiki/LTL/World_record_in_low_temperatures.

4.5×10-10

Coldest Temperature in Nature Observed

• 2003• The Boomerang Nebula• 1K (-272 degrees C)

• http://www.esa.int/esaSC/Pr_1_2003_h_en.html

Direct Observation of Fermionic Condensates (2003)

Deborah S. Jin

Left: Public Domain picture from http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/jin.htm Right: False-color snapshots of a growing fermionic condensate. Copyright Markus Greiner.

Using K-40 atoms and Fesbach Resonanceat a T of K the first true observation of a fermionic Condensate

5×10−8

Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator(ADR)

--Developed by Dr. Peter Shirron at NASA--A solid state refrigerator that uses magnetism to achieve temperatures far below 2K. Changes in the angular momentum of the magnetic “refrigerant’s” electrons result from manipulation of an external magnetic field, and cause the material to store or release heat by changing the system’s entropy.

--Applications in space/astronomyBecause of the ability to reach very low temperatures, and the fact

that it does not rely on gravity to operate (like a dilution refrigerator does).

See: http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/5331?start=3

Technology  originally  discovered  in  the  1990s  to  aid  in  the  safety  of  opening  contaminant  barrels.  It  was  made  available  in  2003  to  scientists  as  a  product  under  the  name  Nitrojet-­‐  licensed  in  2001.    

All  information  and  photos  taken  from  http://www.nitrocision.com/  

USES:  • Variable  temperature  and  pressure  of  LN  stream  cuts  allows  cutting  through  “difficult”  material-­‐  such  as  steel  and  concrete  

• Cleans  and  decontaminates  industrial  and  radioactive  material.  

• Inert  LN  sprays  into  a  gas  a  distance  of  18”  before  being  absorbed  by  the  atmosphere  

• Pressure  ranges:  6000  –  55,000  psi  • Temp  ranges:  100  to  -­‐240  F  • Flow  rate:  1  –  8  GOM  (total  • Power  req:  480  V,  3  phase,  150  KVA  

Supersolid

● In 2004 Moses Chan observed a separation of solid helium from its container.

● Here is the test mass containing the 'supersolid'

● When spun, not all the mass is given a rotational velocity.

Staring in 2001, the non-profit AlcorLife Extension Foundation hadperformed ice-free preservation ofthe brain (ice damage was wellknown and a problem), using aprocess known as vitrification,essentially an antifreeze applicationfor organic materials.

However, in 2005, Alcor extendedthis process from just the isolatedbrain to the brain inside the head ofa subject while still attached to thebody. The result was a vitrificationof the brain and a “conventional”cryo-preservation of the body.

It is hoped from this that the nextstep is full vitrification of the entirebody.

*http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/newtechnology.htmlThis large Dewar is designed to preservefour bodies and six brains.

Cryopreservation• Goal: Reduce temperature of tissue below point of biological activity• Desired temperature is below glass transition point of water (-136 Celsius)• Glass transition/Vitrification: Occurs upon very rapid cooling; forms

amorphous ice (glassine structure, no crystalization)• Crystalization is undesirable because of the subcellular damage that crystals

can cause (esp. crushing/rupturing cell membrane)• For vitrification, cooling must be very rapid• Minimum cooling rate increases with viscosity, depression of freezing

temperature• Common fix: introduce cryoprotectant (similar to anti-freeze)• Most common cryoprotectant: Dimethyl sulfoxide (toxic)• Current cryopreservation research focused on finding appropriate

cryoprotectant• To attain vitrification of pure water, necessary cooling rate estimated to be on

the order of 10^6 Kelvin per second, thought impossible until 2005 research by Bhat, Sharma, and Bhat.

• Researchers that water is capable of undergoing the glass transition in bulk. Researchers exposed capillaries of water to liquid Helium (4.2K)

• Resulting amorphous ice was examined and confirmed with Spin Probe Electron Spin Resonance (ESR)

• Top picture: damaged brain tissue caused by ice crystal formation (white structure is a damaged capillary, black spot is a nucleus sans cell membrane

• Bottom picture: micro-formation of damaging ice crystals

Iron‐based Superconductor• Discovered in 2006 and 2008;• Ferropnictides, based on the iron‐pnictogen(typically arsenic) layers (Cuprates are based on layers of copper and oxygen);

• With alkaline earth metal being substituted by rare earth metal, Critical Temperature may be higher than 40K (39K is the McMillan limit predicted by BCS theory);

• Tc may increase under high pressure;• Some types may have very high upper critical field (Hc ~ 50‐100T)

Superinsulators

• In 2008, physicists found that under certain conditions, metals cooled to temperatures near absolute zero will form superinsulators rather than superconductors.

• Compound used and observed was titanium nitride film placed in a magnetic field.

• “Vinokur points out that a superinsulator material could

be used to encapsulate a superconducting wire. Such a coupling would create an almost perfect wire in which virtually no energy is lost as heat.”

Cryogenics as a Coolant: Cooling the LHCThough cryogenic techniques represent an obvious method of cooling, they have never been used to cool anything on the scale of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Source: University College London, <http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/undergrad-projects/3rdyear/PPguide/cool.htm>

The LHC uses liquid helium [in its superfluid stage around 1.9 K]This is used to keep the copper-shelled niobium-titanium magnetic coils that serve as magnets in a superconducting stateThe use of superfluid helium allows for "kilowatts of refrigeration to be transported over more than a kilometer with a temperature drop of less than 0.1 K."During the initial cooldown (from ambient temperature to superconducting temperature), over 12 million liters of liquid nitrogen will be used.The total amount of liquid helium stored for use in the LHC is 700,000 liters.

Shawn Mitryk - Cyrogenics

Use of cryogenics at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave (GW) Observatory (LIGO)

For more Information, refer to:http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0264-9381/19/7/412/q207b2.pdf?request-id=f10ce0f3-0319-4042-b502-f3b7f6785de4

The LIGO detector is designed to measure gravitational radiation in the frequency range from 10Hz – 1kHz.

4km Laser Interferometer:To achieve the necessary sensitivity to see GW, LIGO must measures the distance between the mirrors to within an accuracy of 1 attometer (10-18 m)

Cryogenic cooling of the mirrors:● reduces thermal noise● reduces thermal lensing

Science run 6 (S6) began on July 7, 2009

Bose-Einstein condensate of strontium produced for

first time (2009)

Cryogenics Breakthrough Event

Mariugenia Salas (UFID 9629-0158)

Scientists from the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information produced a Bose-Einstein condensate of the alkaline-earth element strontium. Key to the discovery was the scientists’ choice of 84Sr, an isotope that is not

as abundant in nature as other strontium isotope candidates like 86Sr and 88Sr. Their research showed that the 84Sr isotope had an ideal scattering length for producing a Bose-Einstein condensate. In experiments where strontium atoms were cooled to near absolute zero in a optical trap, a Bose-Einstein condensate of 150,000 atoms was produced.

Planck instruments’ reach coldest known

temperature in outer space

Source Article- http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=45133

Left Image- http://planck.cf.ac.uk/files/images/09Feb2009-3120_L.jpg_0.jpeg

Right Image- http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/images/planck3.jpg

July 3, 2009 – Planck’s High Frequency Instruments reached an operational temperature of 0.1 K, said to be the coldest

temperature in outer space. Planck detectors are equipped with three cryogenic, cooling systems (final-stage cooling by a 0.1 K dilution system) working in succession to lower the operational temperature from 45 K to 0.1 K.

(Left: Spacecraft’s three “V-groove”-panels for thermally isolating the payload from high temperatures and improve in radiating excess heat. Right: Planck’s Low and High Frequency Instruments (LFI and HFI) spacecraft used for imaging the

sky in six frequency channels between 100 and 857 GHz.)

Cryogenic Testing of NASA Space Telescope On April 9, 2009, parts of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) successfully endured cryogenic

testing at an X-Ray and Cryogenic facility at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

The JWST represents a new era is deep space telescopes: it is far larger and lighter per sq. meter than Hubble and will be kept at cryogenic temperatures by blocking solar radiation and being sent ~ 1 million miles from Earth. This will allow for infrared images of space without interference from infrared radiation from the telescope itself.

Cryogenic testing of all telescope parts is necessary to insure functionality of the instrument in the near absolute zero temperatures of space. The mirror segments are composed of beryllium as it is a non-magnetic metal that doesn't distort significantly over a wide range of temperatures.

One of the 18 mirrors was cooled to 25 K in a vacuum chamber cooled via liquid helium in order to asses the contraction and expansion of the mirror components as the temperature varied. Accounting for such unexpected changes during temperature fluctuations is imperative for images to be rendered correctly. The measurements were made using a laser interferometer

The cooling and reheating process is repeated four times over a six week period. Due to the large size of the vacuum chamber (7,6000 cubic feet), it takes a few days for the liquid helium to cool the chamber to 25 K

Full testing of all 18 mirrors is expected to be completed by mid 2011.

Maureen Petterson, Cryogenics, Spring 2010

JWST compared to Hubble

First Bose-Einstein Condensation of Strontium

•November 2009

• Achieved by scientists from the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI)

•Key: Used 84Sr, instead of naturally abundant 86Sr and 88Sr

•Precision measurements among the applications

Scientist from IQOQI in Innsbruck won the race to produce Bose-Einstein condensation of Sr. http://www.physorg.com/news176994672.html

Article can be found at http://physics.aps.org/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.200401.pdf

New Method to Trap Atoms on a Chip

“Atom chips” allow for the study of ultra cold atomic gasses at temperatures just above absolute zero.

New method involves capturing cold atoms directly onto the atom chips from a room temperature gas of rubidium.

Trapping the atoms is the integration of magneto-optical traps, which come from pyramid-shaped structures etched into a silicon wafer.

The new technique is fairly simple compared to existing atom trapping methods and is the first observation of direct cold atom trapping from a background vapor inside a micro fabricated structure on an atom chip. Example of Atom Chips

Reported: (5/27/2009)

CDMS

Cryogenic Dark Matter Search

Located at Berkeley, there is an experiment that just

finished running which uses super-cooled germanium

and silicon crystals to try to find WIMPs, Weakly

Interacting Massive Particles, which may be the Interacting Massive Particles, which may be the

answer to current issues about ‘dark matter.’ As the

earth sweeps through the so-called dark matter halo

of the Milky Way, the flux of WIMPs is detected by

measuring the increase in internal energy of the

germanium.

Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS)Corey Mahoney

The CDMS scans space for WIMP (weakly interacting massive particle) dark matter from deep underground in Minnesota. A detector of geranium and a detector of silicon are cooled to

milliKelvin temperatures using a dilution refrigerator. The extremely low temperatures limit thermal noise which could obscure the

necessary phonon signals from particle interactions. Despite being in operation since

2002, on December 17th, 2009, the collaboration working on CDMS announced the possible

descoveries of two WIMP dark matter particles.

Pedro J. MoraCryogenics

HW #1

THE DETECTORSCDMS detectors are disks of germanium or silicon,

cooled to millikelvin temperatures by a dilution

refrigerator. The extremely low temperatures are

needed to limit thermal noise which would

otherwise obscure the phonon signals of particle

interactions. Phonon detection is accomplished

with superconduction transition edge sensors

(TESs) read out by SQUID amplifiers, while

ionization signals are read out using an FET

amplifier.

THE EXPERIMENTThe Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) is a

series of experiments designed to directly detect

particle dark matter in the form of WIMP’s. Using

an array of semiconductor detectors at millikelvin

temperatures, CDMS has set the most sensitive

limits to date on the interactions of WIMP dark

matter with terrestrial materials. The first

experiment, CDMSI, was run in a tunnel under the

Stanford University campus. The current

experiment, CDMSII, is located deep underground

in the Soudan Mine in Minnesota.

THE DISCOVERYOn Dec. 17, 2009, the CDMSII announced that it

had detected two pulses which were possible

WIMP candidates (one on August 8 and the other

on October 27, 2007). Two events weredetected that were similar to the propertiesexpected for a Dark Matter particle.However, due to the low number of events,the team could not statistically supportthese detections as true WIMPs since theymay have been false positive frombackground noise such as neutroncollisions. The low number of events leaves

things in doubt, though, and the experimenters

themselves estimate that there's a 25% chance

that the pulses were caused by background

radiation, such as those from neutrino collision.

Experiments are continuing in an attempt to

detect more such pulses, so that it can be

determined exactly what their source is.

References:-About.com:Physics. CDMS experiment.-Wikipedia.com. Cryogenic Dark Matter Search.-Fermilab

Close-up of a CDMS detector, made of crystal germanium

Cryogenic Dark Matter Search

• Collaboration amongst universities to detect dark matter by using germanium and silicon detectors cooled to superconductivity.detectors cooled to superconductivity.

• An increase in resistance (Temperature) would be seen when the dark matter interacts with the detectors

CDMSII Detectors using Cryogenic Techniques

• Detect WIMPS through weak phonon signals in detector’s crystal

• Cooled to 10mK to minimize spurious thermal signals

• Testing employs helium3-helium4 dilution refrigerator techniques

Magnetism in GasesAfter cooling lithium atoms to 150 billionth of 1 K above absolute zero , researchers at MIT observed ferromagnetic behavior in the gas, suggesting that a gas of elementary particles doesn’t always need a crystalline structure to exhibit magnetism.

There is ongoing research in this topic. 

Method: Researchers used a laser light trap to chill lithium. After the atom’s repulsive forces were increased, ferromagnetism was observed.

Small blob of lithium‐6 gas, chilled ultracold.

Sources: http://futurity.org/science‐technology/at‐extremes‐hot‐and‐cold‐act‐oddly‐alike/http://www.cryogenicsociety.org/magnetism_observed_in_a_gas/#more‐4435

Magnetism observed in Gas?

• "Itinerant Ferromagnetism in a Fermi Gas of Ultracold Atoms," Gyu-Boong Jo, Wolfgang Ketterle, et al., Science, Sept. 18, 2009

• A research team at MIT observed ferromagnetic behavior in a gas of lithium-6 isotopes cooled to 150 billionth of 1 Kelvin.

• The team trapped the cooled gas in the focus of a infrared • The team trapped the cooled gas in the focus of a infrared laser beam and made several observations which agreed with the theoretical predictions.

• If confirmed, this result provides insight into the question of whether or not a crystalline structure is needed for ferromagnetism.

• http://web.mit.edu/press/2009/gas-magnetism.html