Cryo-cooling

In physics or engineering the term cryogenics is the production of very low temperatures. It is commonly acknowledged that temperatures below -150 degrees Celsius (123K) are cryogenic temperatures. Cryogenics and Superconductivity are intimately linked, since Superconductivity currently only occurs in Materials that have been cooled to cryogenic temperatures. To achieve cryogenic temperatures, either liquefied gases (He:4.2K, Nitrogen: 76.8K) or cryo-coolers are used.

Cryo-coolers work mainly on the principles of compression and expansion of gases. Although this sounds very technical, that fact is that commercial refrigerators and air conditioning units use similar principles to extract heat from the environment. In cryogenics a number of cryo-cooler principles are being used, most commonly Gifford-McMahon, Joule-Thomson, Pulse-Tube or Stirling cryo-coolers.

For Mesaplexx’s purposes, we use a cryo-coolers that are built on the Stirling principle.The so called Stirling-Engine was patented in 1816, by Reverend Dr. Robert Stirling, originally to produce power from heat, the principle was later applied to extract heat (refrigerate) by reversing the “Stirling-Cycle”.Stirling machines have a high efficiency and have been proven over a long period of time, for their robustness and effectiveness.

Mesaplexx uses cryo-coolers, that have been mission proven by NASA in manned and unmanned space-exploration projects, including the RHESSI project and others. A similar Stirling cryocooler design has been deployed in over 4000 systems for a particular solution, accumulating more than 55 million hours. It is estimated that the MTBF of a Stirling Cryocooled solution is at least 800,000 hours.