JMU HD Distillery

The HD distillery, housed in the basement of the HHS building, has been struggling for the past year as attempts have been made to get it working after a long hiatus. The majors problems appear to be ones related to too much heat in the wrong places.

Dr. Whisnant's collaborators at JLab are working on a redesign on the distillation column now. The new piece should be in-hand in late July and the process of starting up will resume.

In the mean time, Brittany Rash, has made good progress on a major computer (hardware and software) upgrade for the facility. The previous system used two very old computers (one dating from 2001!) to monitor and control pressure transducers, boil-up power and the vacuum pump. All this is now moving to a new computer with dual monitors (Dr. Whisnant is known for his love of a two monitor system!). Brittany has one program up and going and is working on the second one. With improved software (and stability!) and some additional hardware to clean up the computer-instrument interface, the revived distillery shouild purr like a kitten in August.

Stay tuned.

Liquid Hydrogen at JMU

In the process of preparing high purity Hydrogen Deuteride (HD) for the production of frozen spin-polarized targets for the study of the nucleon (protons and neutrons), the gas is liquified and distilled in a unique low temperature distillery.

What you see in the photo above is a webcam view of the liquid hydrogen in the distillery. The still is equipped with narrow windows on either side for viewing the liquid. The webcam comes with with a fixed focus lens so an additional lens is added and held at the right distance with a cardboard tube...hence the circular vignette. This permits a close focus on the boiling liquid. On either side of the window is a frame held in place with bolts. The liquid is seen boiling away between the middle two pairs of bolts.

The top of the distillation column is held at 17K at the moment and the bottom of the still, near where this photo is taken is near 25K. The liquid is being caused to boil by the application of heat by passing a current through a resistor on the bottom of the still. The heater power is set at about 1 W. Liquid hydrogen appears to have a viscosity close to that of water and is colorless.

Just not something you see every day.