Equipment: Helium Recovery Equipment: to Expand the LSU Liquefaction Center

With support from the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program in the Division of Chemistry (CHE), the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Molecular Biophysics Program in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB), Professor Richard Kurtz and his multidisciplinary team at Louisiana State University are developing the capability to recover and reuse the boil-off gas from liquid helium, a non-renewable resource. Liquid helium enables a broad range of low temperature technologies and is crucial to superconducting instrumentation. It is essential that the community move to conserve and recycle helium from the boil-off of these instruments so that new discoveries to improve the intellectual and physical wellbeing of society can continue. This project will allow recovery of helium from the LSU Chemistry Department’s Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) facility as well as the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD) synchrotron light source. The boil-off helium gas from these facilities will be collected, compressed, and transported to the LSU’s existing Physics Department Helium Recovery and Liquefaction Center to be re-liquefied and returned for re-use. The superconducting magnets in the LSU NMR facility and the two superconducting insertion devices at the LSU CAMD synchrotron collectively consume a significant volume of liquid helium per year, all of which is currently lost to boil-off. This helium recovery project involves the installation of equipment at each site consisting of gas collection bags, compressors, and recovery gas manifolds to capture this helium boil-off for reliquefaction and re-use. The high rate of recovery expected will be monitored and reported back to NSF. This project will significantly improve our stewardship of this limited resource and the anticipated savings will support multiple NSF-funded programs impacted by the cost and availability of liquid helium. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.