Date: 23rd March, 2009 (Fri.)                   Time: 14:45-16:30
Venue: Room F210, Mechanical Building                                     

By Dr. Chao Wang
Chief Scientist, Director of R&D, Cryomech, Inc. 
113 Falso Drive, Syracuse, NY, USA
 
Abstract
This talk introduces the history, applications and world supply of helium. Due to the increasing demand of helium and limitation of extracting crude helium from the US Bureau of Land Management, the world has been facing the shortage of helium supply in the past few years which leads to supply interruption and significantly increase of price. One solution for this challenge is helium recovery and recycling. Cryogenics is the largest application of helium. The 4K cryocoolers have made it possible to have dry-cryostats and dry superconducting magnets etc., as well as zero-boil off liquid helium systems. Latest small-scale helium liquefiers and re-liquefiers play an important role in helium recovery and recycling.