This is what $10000 worth of liquid Helium looks like.
We will waste most of it cooling the superconducting magnet of our new NMR to 4 Kelvin (-452 F). The magnet is the thermos on legs in the middle. The tank in the front right is a Dewar of liquid nitrogen that we are using to get the damned thing down to 90 K before we add the liquid helium. All told, we will boil off about $20K worth of cryogenic liquids to get this thing started. The fun part is that once it's at 4 K, we will feed current into the coils and that current will run in a circle for the life of the magnet without any further current source.. About two weeks ago, we drained the current out of the old magnet after 23 years of stalwart service. Take that, NASCAR.
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
We will waste most of it cooling the superconducting magnet of our new NMR to 4 Kelvin (-452 F). The magnet is the thermos on legs in the middle. The tank in the front right is a Dewar of liquid nitrogen that we are using to get the damned thing down to 90 K before we add the liquid helium. All told, we will boil off about $20K worth of cryogenic liquids to get this thing started. The fun part is that once it's at 4 K, we will feed current into the coils and that current will run in a circle for the life of the magnet without any further current source.. About two weeks ago, we drained the current out of the old magnet after 23 years of stalwart service. Take that, NASCAR.
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)