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Cryogenics, Cancer & COVID-19: Transitioning from liquid to air phase cryogenic storage

Image 1: Cryogenic sample. Credit: Select Science In this exclusive SelectScience® interview, we speak with a panel of scientific experts to find out how cryogenic storage is helping to advance their novel research projects and break scientific boundaries. Our panel of experts include Dr. Ronan Chaligné, Director of the Single Cell Analysis Innovation Lab at Sloan Kettering Institute, Dr. Ernesto Diaz-Flores, Associate Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Dr. Anne Wyllie, Research Scientist at the Yale School of Public Health. The team will outline the key cryogenic challenges they each face, as well as sharing their hopes for the future. Plus, we will explore cryogenic technology, reveal why researchers no longer need to rely on liquid nitrogen (LN2) based cryogenic freezers, and discuss how mechanical freezers could soon provide a promising alternative.

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CryoEdge Solves an Ancient Problem with a Cutting-Edge Solution

Cryo EdgeEver since the Stone Age, people have searched for the most effective ways to cut and shape materials for best use. This quest has most recently resulted in revolutionary breakthroughs and developments like lasers, plasma beams, and water jets as cutting instruments. Despite these advances, the overwhelming majority of cutting tasks still require metal with a sharpened edge, which has one key undesirable trait: it wears out and gets dull. Not so with CryoEdge, a sales and service company based in the Spokane, Washington area. CryoEdge’s essential issue goes back to prehistoric times: how can we cut things better and make the tools we use for cutting last longer? 

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How to Avoid a Tank Collapse

https://cryo.memberclicks.net/assets/Example-of-Vacuum-Collapse.jpgThe industrial gas industry produces the elemental components of “air” (nitrogen, oxygen, and argon) that are used in other industries as part of their processes. Once separated from air, each element exists as an extremely cold cryogenic temperature liquid. Typical liquid temperatures are −185° C. Large, field-erected tanks are used to store these liquids, and these tanks range from 100,000 gallons to over 2,000,000 gallons in size. API-620/Appendix Q standards, or their equivalent, are the routine guiding design documents. These tanks are built as flat-bottom, domed-top tanks, typically with stainless steel inner containers, carbon-steel outer containers, and the top/side insulation space between these tanks filled with three to five feet (radial dimension) of granular perlite insulation. The inner tank sits on a sandwich structure of Foamglas® insulation and concrete. During cooldown and commissioning, these tanks need to be dried, inerted, and brought down to very cold temperatures to allow product to be introduced. If done incorrectly during cooldown, these tanks risk vacuum collapse. This article discusses the details surrounding one such occurrence. 

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Hydrogen Liquefaction System Developed from Stirling Cryogenerators

2019 Stirling Cryogenics hydrogen reliquefier for Cold Neutron Source at RID. Credit: Stirling CryogenicsStirling cryogenerators have been widely used since the 1960s and 1970s for the production of LH2 at various institutes and research laboratories all over the world. In materials sciences, small-scale production was used to study the properties and behavior of LH2 and its effect on materials.

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Off-Grid Hydrogen Energy Maximizes Power of Steam

Dylan Energy R and DDylan CHP LLC has researched, developed, and patented advanced steam generation technology, utilizing hydrogen to generate clean energy electricity. The Dylan System is based on extreme heat preservation (EHP), the heart of the Dylan patent that allows the Dylan Energy-Efficient System to achieve nameplate steam output while consuming only a small fraction of the hydrogen. Dylan’s flexible EHP technology can easily be retrofitted to burn other fuels including natural gas, LNG, flare gas, landfill gas, MSW, or other traditional fuels as feedstock that more conventional systems require. Dylan continues to engineer its system to maximize quality, energy efficiencies and reliability to its customers. 

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Pancreatic Islet Cryopreservation Marks Breakthrough for Diabetes Cure

University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering Professor John Bischof and mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Lakshya Gangwar use one-of-a-kind pieces of equipment to cryopreserve and rewarm cells, tissues and even entire organs. Credit: Rebecca SlaterEngineering and medical researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and Mayo Clinic have developed a new process for successfully storing specialized pancreatic islet cells at very low temperatures and rewarming them with a laser and gold nanoparticles, enabling the potential for on-demand islet transplantation. The breakthrough discovery in cryopreservation is a major step forward in a cure for diabetes. 

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Paragraf is Changing the Game with Cryogenic Hall Sensors

Paragraf GHS mounted on an Oxford Instruments‘ Proteox development fridge. Credit: ParagrafDue to limitations in size and power dissipation, many prevalent measurement methods are incompatible with low temperature applications. Hall effect sensors have emerged as the superior option because of their compact size and low-power requirement. Until now, conventional Hall sensors have themselves been limited by material capabilities and the quantum Hall effect (QHE). Paragraf®’s Cryogenic Graphene Hall Sensors (GHS-C), however, enhance the ability of companies that make and/or use superconducting magnets to conduct continuous measurements in low temperature and high-field environments. This means ending the reliance on factory calibration or current-to-field measurements to evaluate these systems. With its patented graphene deposition process, Paragraf averts limitations by producing the GHS-C, which achieves operation in temperatures down to mK and field measurements of over 30 T. 

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Liftoff! NASA’s Artemis I Mega Rocket Launches Orion to Moon

Following a successful launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket in the world, the agency’s Orion spacecraft is on its way to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. Carrying an uncrewed Orion, SLS lifted off for its flight test debut at 1:47 a.m. EST Wednesday from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.   Following a successful launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket in the world, the agency’s Orion spacecraft is on its way to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. Carrying an uncrewed Orion, SLS lifted off for its flight test debut at 1:47 a.m. EST Wednesday, November 16, 2022, from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.   

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FRIB Experiment Pushes Elements to the Limit

Image: A multi-institutional team of scientific users have published the results of the first scientific experiment at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams in the journal Physical Review Letters. The experiment studied the decay of isotopes so unstable that they only exist for fractions of a second. To perform the study, the rare isotopes were implanted into the center of a sensitive detector known as the FRIB Decay Station initiator. Credit: FRIBA new study led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has measured how long it takes for several kinds of exotic nuclei to decay. The paper, published today in Physical Review Letters, marks the first experimental result from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by Michigan State University.

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NASA Inflatable Heat Shield Finds Strength in Flexibility

HIAD undergoing testing by Boeing. Credit. BoeingHow does something that looks like a stack of orange inner tubes covered in a black tarp survive temperatures reaching 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it plunges through the atmosphere? An upcoming technology demonstration uses advanced materials to make a heat shield that's tougher than it looks.

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Pilot Project Tests New High-Capacity Transmission Lines

Power lines by Pok Rie-PexelsVEIR, an early-stage technology company based in Woburn, Mass., is pioneering the first application of superconducting transmission over long distances, a key component to deliver renewable sources of energy safely and reliably from where it is generated to where it is needed, often cross-country. VEIR is teaming up with National Grid, an electricity, natural gas, and clean energy delivery company with operations in the US and UK, that will aid the project in product development with the joint goal of demonstrating the new technology on a protected area of the grid.  

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Thermal Control Designs Keep Astronauts Cool on Space Station

Astronauts at work on Tiangong Space StationFor astronauts, staying cool and comfortable on China's Tiangong space station is no problem. The station orbits Earth in about 90 minutes at an altitude of 400 km. It experiences large fluctuations in temperature, ranging from 150 degrees Celsius when the station is exposed to the sun to minus 100 degrees Celsius when over the night side of the planet. So how to protect station residents from extreme heat and cold during their six-month stay in orbit? The answer lies in several thermal control designs courtesy of the China Academy of Space Technology.

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Three Questions: Emre Gençer on the role of blue hydrogen in decarbonizing the world’s energy systems

Credit: akitada31/PixabayIn the past several years, hydrogen energy has increasingly become a more central aspect of the clean energy transition. Hydrogen can produce clean, on-demand energy that could complement variable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. That being said, pathways for deploying hydrogen at scale have yet to be fully explored. In particular, the optimal form of hydrogen production remains in question.

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First Radio-Astronomy Cryogenic Receivers with All-Metal 3D-Printed RF Components

Image: IMAGE: A 3D-PRINTED CORRUGATED HORN (LEFT). A BAND 1 RECEIVER WITH THE ALL-METAL 3D-PRINTED CORRUGATED HORN INSTALLED (RIGHT). CREDIT: NAOJ, ASIAAThe NAOJ ALMA Project and Advanced Technology Center have successfully fabricated corrugated all-metal 3D-printed horns for the ALMA Band 1 receivers (Radio Frequency: 35-50 GHz). Since around 2015, the NAOJ ALMA Project and the Advanced Technology Center have been studying the applications of additive manufacturing (AM), which produces three-dimensional objects by depositing, joining, and solidifying materials based on 3D models input to a control computer. Since astronomical receivers often have only one or two devices of each type per instrument and they require unique custom-made components, there is potential for effective use of additive manufacturing.

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Explained: Why ISRO again test-fired its CE-20 Cryogenic Engine, ahead of next flight in 2023

ISRO has successfully test-fired its CE-20 Cryogenic engine, as part of the preparation for the next launch of its heaviest rocket. Credit: WION The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has successfully test-fired its CE-20 Cryogenic engine, as part of the preparation for the next launch of its heaviest rocket. This latest test comes a week after the Indian Space agency placed 36 satellites of the UK-based 'OneWeb', into Low Earth Orbit, using its heaviest rocket LVM3. The next launch to be carried out using the LVM3 will be performed sometime around January or February 2023, Chairman, ISRO, Dr. S. Somanath told WION. 

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Azenta Hosts First Cryogenic Considerations for Cell & Gene Therapy Symposium

Image: David Lewandowski, Director, Business Development for Cell and Gene Therapy at Azenta speaks at the symposium. Credit: AzentaAzenta Life Sciences, a leading provider of life sciences solutions worldwide, hosted the Cryogenic Considerations for Cell and Gene Therapy Symposium in Boston, MA October 17-19th. The symposium brought together over 100 participants across over 60 organizations including top cryobiology experts to discuss the nuances of cryogenic supply chain, transient warming, and thawing of advanced therapies—from collection of raw materials to manufacturing and distribution of cell and gene therapies.

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Almac Unveils New Cryogenic Service Solution for Advanced Therapy Trials

Almac Unveils New Cryogenic Service Solution for Advanced Therapy TrialsAlmac Clinical Services, a member of The Almac Group, announced a new state-of-the-art cryogenic service solution within its Durham, N. C. campus to support cell and gene therapies. This latest investment from Almac adds to the company’s overall $4 million investment to date in innovative cold chain technology in North Carolina. The Cryogenic Service Solution ensures an unbroken chain of custody from product line to patient, for sponsors of advanced therapy trials. 

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Cryo-EM Reveals Cold-sensing Cell Channels Manipulated by Chemicals to Induce Cold Sensation

The image is an interpretation of the role of the TRPM8 channel—the primary player responsible for cold sensation in humans. The concept of sculpting ice refers not only to the cold sensation itself triggered by the opening of this channel, but also to the process of discovering further how its complex structure works. Credit: Joana C. CarvalhoA team of researchers affiliated with the Duke University School of Medicine, Lehigh University and the National Institutes of Health has revealed the molecular means by which cold-sensing channels in cells are manipulated by certain chemicals to induce a cold sensation. The study is published in the journal Science.

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Air Liquide to Design Cryogenic Tanks for Vega-E Space Launcher

rocket launchAir Liquide is advancing space exploration, having signed a contract with space propulsion expert Avio for the design of the new generation of cryogenic tanks for the upper stage of the future Vega-E launcher. The project is coordinated by the European Space Agency (ESA), and the launcher will use cryogenic tanks filled with a mixture of oxygen stored at -182° C and methane stored at -161° C to act as propellant for the oxygen-methane engine. 

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Video: Pushing the Limits of Cryogenic Technology

 Left: Interior of the Goldeneye The extremely low temperatures required for performing state-of-the-art physics experiments and operating large quantum processors have been achieved in Project Goldeneye. IBM researchers have successfully demonstrated the proof-of-concept technology for a dilution refrigerator capable of cooling future generations of quantum experiments. You can watch a sneak peek of the IBM Quantum System Two here

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