How to avoid hydrogen contamination in liquid helium to finally reach really low temperatures
Over the past years, problems have been reported by our customers that they have problems reaching temperatures below 4.2 K when using liquid helium in combination with a capillary to cool down to around 1.8 K. Prof. Rillo from the University of Zaragoza has finally identified these problems to originate from hydrogen contamination inside the liquid helium. A new article from Will and Haberstroh from the Technical University in Dresden summarizes this phenomenon and gives an insight into how the capillary blockage forms [1].
Do you use an ATP30 gas purifier? Then one possible solution is to equip your helium gas purifier with a catalyst that either burns or binds hydrogen. This option is called Hydrogen Removal Cartridge.
Source: [1] doi:10.1088/1757899X/755/1/012117
