Cryogenic hose with optimum thermal efficiency for helium, hydrogen, or neon. These super-insulated, stainless-steel hose are ideal for MRI/NMR refill, superconducting magnets, trans-fill, instrumentation, and experimental transfer. CMSH Series Portable Liquid Helium Dewars. Notice however, that the critical temperatures for helium and hydrogen (5.2 K and 32.9 K) are higher than required for many cryogenic applications, particularly in the area of superconductivity. Thus, cryogenic systems in many cases use helium or hydrogen flows that are below critical temperatures but above critical pressures.
As featured in gasworld US edition—Founded in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in its almost 60 years of business, Gardner Cryogenics has produced more than 1,900 cryogenic tanks, the first of which is still operational today.
Specialised in developing high-performance, high reliability, long-lasting storage tanks for the transportation of liquid helium and hydrogen molecules globally, Gardner’s team of cryogenic experts work around the clock to provide its customers with high quality products. Affinity photo plugin photoshop.
The company’s story began in 1961 and gained momentum in 1981 when it was acquired, giving Gardner an increased opportunity to develop crucial products for the cryogenics industry. In 1967 Gardner designed its 8,500-gallon liquid helium ISO container, and in 1973 the company went on to introduce the first 11,000-gallon ISO container, which eventually became the global industry standard for moving liquid helium molecules.
Gardner’s early product innovations are widely respected in the industry, and it’s first ever 11,000-gallon ISO tank is still in operation today and, to date, only five of the 1700-plus ISO containers manufactured by Gardner have been decommissioned.
Ravi Subramanian, Business and Product Development Manager at Gardner Cryogenics, told gasworld, “Used by all major industrial gas companies, Gardner’s 11,000-gallon 40-foot ISO container, is the world’s most economical and widely used containerised liquid helium tank. For nearly 60 years, Gardner has been focused on developing products that meet the needs of the cryogenic industry. Gardner Cryogenics is proud to support our helium customers globally by offering and enabling them to cost-effectively move and store helium with near zero loss.”
Today, Gardner Cryogenics showcases a diverse portfolio of products for liquid helium and liquid hydrogen with storage containers from 1,500 to 45,000 gallons and transportation containers ranging from 1,500 to 17,000 gallons.
“Our most popular products are the 11,000 gallon 175 psig-40 days liquid helium ISO containers and the 17,000-gallon liquid hydrogen semi-trailer,” Subramanian said.
“The 11,000 gallon 175 psig-40 days container is the ultimate ISO container, an innovation built to meet our customers’ demand for high-reliability, long-lasting and high-performance. Gardner has seen demand continue to grow in its helium segment. With new helium sources expected to be onstream in the coming year, the need for new helium ISO containers has enabled growth during the pandemic.”
Subramanian added, “Our Ultimate 11,000-gallon, 175-40 days ISO container, 91 psi 35 days dual shield technology, and 91-45 days product will support the global growth and accommodate logistic challenges to transport the molecules from source to customer site.”
A key feature that makes Gardner’s innovations highly popular throughout the market is the company’s unique technology that provides the lowest heat-leak for the highest yield when transporting, storing and transferring liquid helium and liquid hydrogen.
While Gardner’s products have served the industry for decades, it has adapted the company’s offerings to align with the latest trends.
Discussing the trends Gardner is currently seeing, Subramanian explained, “We are seeing continued demand for our liquid helium ISO containers. Also, with increasing demand from helium in Asia, we are expanding our aftermarket services globally to support our customers where they are located. With ‘Hydrogen for Mobility’ expected to grow in North America, Europe, China, and Korea, Gardner is expanding its product portfolio and adding manufacturing floor space to meet market demand globally.”
Subramanian also explained that with new sources of helium, and the growing hydrogen energy demand, Gardner is planning to expand its product portfolio accordingly.
“We plan to offer a liquid hydrogen stationary tank, meeting European, Chinese, and Korean regulations and liquid hydrogen transportable semi-trailers to store and move the molecules. Gardner added more floor space to increase its manufacturing capacity to meet market demand,” Subramanian said.
“The Gardner engineering team continues to push the limit by developing novel concepts to enable our customers to address challenging logistic issues, regulatory demands and manage their operational needs.”
In the field of cryogenics, helium [He] is utilized for a variety of reasons. The combination of helium’s extremely low molecular weight and weak interatomic reactions yield interesting properties when helium is cooled below its critical temperature of 5.2 K to form a liquid. Even at absolute zero (0K), helium does not condense to form a solid under ambient pressure. In this state, the zero point vibrational energies of helium are comparable to very weak interatomic binding interactions, thus preventing lattice formation and giving helium its fluid characteristics.[1] Within this liquid state, helium has two phases referred to as helium I and helium II. Helium I displays thermodynamic and hydrodynamic properties of classical fluids, along with quantum characteristics. However, below its lambda point of 2.17 K, helium transitions to He II and becomes a quantum superfluid with zero viscosity.[2]
Under extreme conditions such as when cooled beyond Tλ, helium has the ability to form a new state of matter, known as a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC), in which the atoms virtually lose all their energy. Without energy to transfer between molecules, the atoms begin to aggregate creating a volume of equivalent density and energy.[3] From observations, liquid helium only exhibits super-fluidity because it contains isolated islands of BECs, which have well-defined magnitude and phase, as well as well-defined phonon–roton (P-R) modes.[4] A phonon refers to a quantum of energy associated with a compressional wave such as the vibration of a crystal lattice while a roton refers to an elementary excitation in superfluid helium. In the BEC’s, the P-R modes have the same energy, which explains the zero point vibrational energies of helium in preventing lattice formation.[5]
Zf transmission. When helium is below Tλ, the surface of the liquid becomes smoother, indicating the transition from liquid to superfluid.[6] Experiments involving neutron bombardment correlate with the existence of BEC’s, thereby confirming the source of liquid helium’s unique properties such as super-fluidity and heat transfer.[6][7]
A schematic of a helium cooling system; heat flow is represented by red arrows and helium flow is by black arrows.
Though seemingly paradoxical, cryogenic helium systems can move heat from a volume of relatively low temperature to a volume of relatively high temperature.[8] Though this phenomenon appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, experiments have shown this to prevail in systems where the volume of low temperature is constantly heated, and the volume of high temperature is constantly cooled. It is believed this phenomenon is related to the heat associated with the phase change between liquid and gaseous helium.[8]
Applications[edit]
Superconductors[edit]
Liquid helium is used as a coolant for various superconducting applications. Notable are particle accelerators where magnets are used for steering charged particles. If large magnetic fields are required then superconducting magnets are used. In order for superconductors to be efficient, they must be kept below their respective critical temperature. This requires very efficient heat transfer. Because of the reasons discussed previously, superfluid helium can be used to effectively transfer heat away from superconductors.[9]
Quantum computing[edit]
Cryofab Liquid Helium Dewar
One proposed use for superfluid helium is in quantum computing. Quantum computers utilize the quantum states of matter, such as the electron spin, as individual quantum bits (qubits), a quantum analogue of the bit used in traditional computers to store information and perform processing tasks. The spin states of the electrons present on the surface of superfluid helium in a vacuum show promise as excellent qubits. In order to be considered a usable qubit, a closed system of individual quantum objects must be created that interact with each other, but whose interaction with the outside world is minimal. In addition, the quantum objects must be able to be manipulated by the computer, and the quantum system’s properties must be readable by the computer to signal the termination of a computational function.[10] It is believed that in vacuum, superfluid helium satisfies many of these criteria since a closed system of its electrons can be read and easily manipulated by the computer in a similar fashion as electrostatically manipulated electrons in semiconductor heterostructures. Another beneficial aspect of the liquid helium quantum system is that application of an electrical potential to liquid helium in a vacuum can move qubits with little decoherence. In other words, voltage can manipulate qubits with little effect on the ordering of the phase angles in the wave functions between the components of the liquid helium quantum system.[11]
X-ray crystallography[edit]
The advent of high-flux X-rays provides a useful tool for developing high-resolution structures of proteins. However, higher energy crystallography incurs radiation damage to the proteins studied. Cryogenic helium systems can be used with greater efficacy than nitrogen cryogenic systems to prevent radical damage to protein crystals.[12]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Liquid Helium
- ^Yang, Shengfu, and Andrew M. Ellis. 'Helium Droplets: A Chemistry Perspective.' Chemical Society Reviews 42.2 (2012): 472-84. Print.
- ^Woods, A. D B, and R. A. Cowley. 'Structure and Excitations of Liquid Helium.' Reports on Progress in Physics 36.9 (1973): 1135-231. Print.
- ^Penrose, Oliver, and Lars Onsager. 'Bose–Einstein Condensation and Liquid Helium.' Physical Review 104.3 (1956): 576-84. Print.
- ^Haussmann, R. 'Properties of a Fermi Liquid at the Superfluid Transition in the Crossover Region between BCS Superconductivity and Bose–Einstein Condensation.' Physical Review B 49.18 (1994): 12975-2983. Print.
- ^Bossy, Jacques, Jonathan Pearce, Helmut Schober, and Henry Glyde. 'Phonon–Roton Modes and Localized Bose–Einstein Condensation in Liquid Helium under Pressure in Nanoporous Media.' Physical Review Letters 101.2 (2008): n. pag. Print.
- ^ abCharlton, T. R., R. M. Dalgliesh, O. Kirichek, S. Langridge, A. Ganshin, and P. V. E. Mcclintock. 'Neutron Reflection from a Liquid Helium Surface.' Low Temperature Physics 34.4 (2008): 316-19. Print.
- ^Tsipenyuk, Yu. M., O. Kirichek, and O. Petrenko. 'Small-angle Scattering of Neutrons on Normal and Superfluid Liquid Helium.' Low Temperature Physics 39.9 (2013): 777. Print.
- ^ abPavel Urban; David Schmoranzer; Pavel Hanzelka; Katepalli R. Sreenivasan & Ladislav Skrbek (2013). 'Anomalous heat transport and condensation in convection of cryogenic helium'. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (20): 8036–8039. Bibcode:2013PNAS.110.8036U. doi:10.1073/pnas.1303996110. PMC3657834. PMID23576759.
- ^Pier Paolo Granieri “Heat Transfer between the Superconducting Cables of the LHC Accelerator Magnets and the Superfluid Helium Bath” Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne Thesis No. 5411 (2012): 1–2 August 29, 2012 http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/180620/files/EPFL_TH5411.pdf
- ^Dykman, M. I., P. M. Platzman. “Quantum Computing with Electrons Floating on Liquid Helium.” Science 284 (1999): 1967-69. Print.
- ^Lyon, S. A. “Spin-based quantum computing using electrons on liquid helium.” Physical Review A 74.5 (2006): 52338-2344. Print.
- ^Cryogenic (<20 K) helium cooling mitigates radiation damage to protein crystals” Acta Crystallographica Section D. 2007 63 (4) 486-492
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