Liquefying air at home with my new cryopump

I have a new and awesome toy! A cryopump, capable of temperatures as low as 10 Kelvin. Eventually it is going to be integrated in a high vacuum chamber. But until then, I am going to use it to liquefy different gasses like oxygen and nitrogen and use them for experiments.
Do you have any questions or suggestions? I would like to hear them in the comments! If you want, you can join my patreon to help me working on my projects. All posts will be public, so you can participate without paying. / advancedtinkering

[@nikoskaravitakis9437]

The reason for small yield is that you are not using the first stage of the cryopump for liquifaction. The second stage is designed for much lower temps and its cooling power is small. The first stage is much more powerful for liquifying gases like oxygen argon nitrogen air etc. Using the first stage too will increase yield by a lot.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

I just assumed the first stage does not get cold enough. Good to know, that that was the problem. Thank you for the advice!

[@nikoskaravitakis9437]

you welcome! :). Do you have email or mobile app like telegram or whatsapp?.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Sure, you can write me an Email at [e-mail] or text me on discord AdvancedTinkering#2156. I also have Telegram, but I don't like to give these contact information to strangers.

[@user-ov3gv8gd9k]

@@AdvancedTinkering ⚠ God has said in the Quran: 🔵 { O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous - ( 2:21 ) 🔴 [He] who made for you the earth a bed [spread out] and the sky a ceiling and sent down from the sky, rain and brought forth thereby fruits as provision for you. So do not attribute to Allah equals while you know [that there is nothing similar to Him]. ( 2:22 ) 🔵 And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah, if you should be truthful. ( 2:23 ) 🔴 But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers.( 2:24 ) 🔵 And give good tidings to those who believe and do righteous deeds that they will have gardens [in Paradise] beneath which rivers flow. Whenever they are provided with a provision of fruit therefrom, they will say, "This is what we were provided with before." And it is given to them in likeness. And they will have therein purified spouses, and they will abide therein eternally. ( 2:25 ) ⚠ Quran

[@p.0-npcg.248]

The background emergency service sound... They can sense you a mile away :D

[@Spirit532]

Re: cooling - toss a radiator out the window :P Re: ideas - cool some semiconductors! Observe wavelength shifting in LEDs and lasers, measure noise in amps and such.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

I definitely would, if I could :D Those are some great ideas! Thanks!

[@catcam]

Great setup ! And thanks for sharing great content !

[@stickyfox]

I use indium to solder strain gauges where the thermal expansion of normal solder would be unacceptable. Indium solder can also wet glass and ceramic if you need to make a connection on a non-conductive surface. Maybe that's kind of fun/cool.

[@TheZombieSaints]

Next time you liquify some air, you could use a magnet to make the oxygen 'jump' out of the liquid 😄 great video. Also by now it's probably integrated into your other awesome devices

[@DEtchells]

I’m amazed that the pump can cool so well, with only 200 psi pressure differential. It’d be interesting to know it’s internal construction, it must cleverly use the returning low-pressure cold gas to chill the high-pressure gas on its way to the cooling head. Very impressive in any case! I’ve been wanting to make LN2 myself for a long time now, saw someone make a rig from a surplus low noise amplifier assembly from a cell tower that had a cryocooler in it. Those don’t seem to be on eBay anymore, and things under the category of “cryocoolers” seem way expensive. Cryopumps seem a bit less pricey, perhaps because most people don’t know what to do with them. Hmm… :-)

[@jackmclane1826]

It is possibly an inverse stirling engine.

[@peter360adventures9]

Awesome.

[@greenbotdynamics885]

You should be using the normal yellow type-K connector to the meter instead of the PLC/DIN type crimps. The dissimilar metals at the input adds a second metal junction which causes measurement error even without your fingers present.

[@MarkBuildGood]

You could use a 'tig water cooling unit' to cool the machine from a distance and vent the heat outside.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Yes that might be an option. But I don't know how much heat they can remove. The compressor produces a crazy amount of heat.

[@MarkBuildGood]

@@AdvancedTinkering You can find all of the specs listed. Specifications Model: WRC-300A Protection Level: IP21 Cooling power: 1.5KW(1L/min) Pump power: 260W Rated water flow: 7L-12L/min Water capacity: 10L Max pressure/head: 0.4Mpa/60Hz Rated lift: 32M Operating temperature: -20℃- 60℃ Gross Weight: 16kg (35.3lbs)

[@EdwardTriesToScience]

awww lucky, the only cryogenic stuff I can get somewhat is dry ice from sodastream CO2 bottles, if I get a lathe and some metalworking tools at some point I might try making a stirling cycle cryocooler but that's pretty hard to do (maybe joule thompson but the pressures needed are insane and I would need a high pressure compresser). Nice video, pretty interesting nonetheless some stupid ideas I have currently other than building or buying cryogenic stuff is stacking peltiers together or using a couple refrigeration loops back to back but refilled with propane as it's colder

[@AdvancedTinkering]

I would love to see someone build a Stirling cryocooler themselves! I also thought about building a cascade phase change system. I think it's your bet!

[@nikoskaravitakis9437]

Building your own stirling cryocooler is insanely difficult and it also needs to keep pressurized helium inside. Peltiers are super inefficient and cant work at these temperatures. Cascade or mixed refrigerant joule thomson cooler is your best bet to get to -100 to -180 range. I have built a small 2stage cascade cooler myself for -100c and currently working on a precooled mixed refrigerant JT cryocooler to liquify nitrogen air oxygen etc. MRJT uses a mixture of gases in order to reduce the required pressure and make the use of regular rotary ac or fridge compressors possible. Many chinese nitrogen liquifiers use this cycle and also cryogenic lcd freezers use this to get to -180c

[@en2oh]

@@nikoskaravitakis9437 what is an LCD freezer? (the above system is using Gifford McMahon cooling - lower compressor pressure than JT, but much less efficient.

[@sakurakinomoto6195]

Very interesting! But you should have used a Dewar container instead of this improvised can to improve the yield.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Yes definitely. In my second video I am using a proper dewar.

[@zoozolplexOne]

Interesting

[@en2oh]

when our liquid nitrogen plant was acting up, we'd get liquid air - nice blue color! The thing about liquid air is the nitrogen will boil off first, leaving liquid oxygen in the flask. One question - is that helium compressor single phase? GM liquification is pretty energy inefficient.... Time to install a solar array for green cryo!

[@procactus9109]

Is it possible to use the indium to make some kind of crude LED ?

[@Metal_Master_YT]

you want an indium idea? try this: take the indium, clean and coalesce it, then stamp it into the shape of a stick of gum (with the texture and everything) then wrap in in a gum wrapper. ta-da! you have metal gum!

[@MostlyIC]

the important question for me is how does the cryopump work, what is its design, (a much lesser question is how do you get liquid air instead of solid ice ?)

[@pyromen321]

2:03 melt it down into a cookie and take a bite out of it (if you have enough). I recently bought 100g of indium just for this purpose and was satisfied with my purchase.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

I did exactly that :D

[@DeezNutz-ce5se]

So indium isn't toxic😅

[@SodiumInteresting]

I'm so jealous 🙃😝

[@lroberge0]

one suggestion for the indium-make a indium mirror for infrared light.

[@greenNRGinit]

I am very interested in the cryo pump performance specs. How can I connect with you?

[@330marshall]

What makes a compressor and coldhead compatible? Do they have to be a matching pair?

[@whatthefunction9140]

I want a cryopump

[@matthewsimmons6831]

Could the indium be used to prepare some ITO Indium Tin Oxide? I don't know how straight forward it would be, but if you're getting into sputtering then ITO can be used as a transparent, conductive layer on glass (such as LCDs) and that sort of thing.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Sounds interesting! I will look into the preparation of ITO.

[@giles5966]

Oxygen is paramagnetic. 90K for oxygen BP. 77K LN2 BP. Styrofoam is good as an insulator. Beware of asphyxiation.

[@procactus9109]

If you like cheese, you will love freeze dried cheddar.. freeze dried macadamia nuts are awesome too.

[@KallePihlajasaari]

Sounds interesting. Do they retain their oily nature and are they harder or softer when dried?

[@yaykruser]

where can i get ine?

[@brfisher1123]

Have you ever thought about making solid oxygen?

[@JanBosman507]

4:35 sick daft punk beat going on there

[@trebuchette633]

Wait, how did you pour it on your hand without hurting yourself? Is liquid oxygen not very thermally conductive?

[@AdvancedTinkering]

It is called "Leidenfrost-Effect". The liquid oxygen forms an insulating layer of air, that protects my hand for a short period. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect

[@SolarSeeker45]

I disagree with the other comment. I would say that the primary reason for the poor cooling capacity is that the type of helium you used is a 50/50 mix of helium and air. SO your refrigerant is condensing in the cold head both reducing the efficiency of the cold head and the mass flow of refrigerant while reducing the pressure in the lines.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

According to the packaging it is Helium 4.6, so far from 50/50 helium and air. I of course have no way of confirming that but it reached 17 K under vacuum.

[@very-mean-spirited-lizard]

The inside of a vacuum pump looks a lot weirder than I imagined

[@Exotic_Chem_Lab]

Idea - Liquid hydrogen for the first time on youtube.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

I would love to. But there is no way I can do that safely. So I can't do it.

[@NikolayIslentev]

@LabRat Knatz liquid ozone will explode just by itself.

[@heinrichhein2605]

just FYI those party things only have about 80-90 He in them, but if you get 4.6 thats fine also you than should do it with vacuum any contamination can destroy the cold head and the absorber

[@AdvancedTinkering]

I heard that there is helium for balloons that only has 80-90%. The helium I used is 4.6 according to the seller and the package it came in. Yes, vacuum would have probably been better. I flushed the lines with a lot of helium to remove any leftover air and moisture. Should I have to refill it again, I will use the proper fitting and a vacuum pump.

[@heinrichhein2605]

@@AdvancedTinkering i have tested a view, none of them were even close to 95%, but proper 4.6 is not that expensive so such a nice toy ;). When I do the filling I pull a good vacuum that would be sufficient, moisture is off cures also a huge problem. The only thing is filling it once not correctly can reduce the life quite allot. We have a lot of them running with cold traps. We monitor the temperature and when they perform worse they get send for rebuilding, the one someone used the wrong cylinder with only 90% He it did break in like 1/8 of the time. Looking forward to your experiments, there is a lot of fun to have

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Thank you for the information! It's good to know, that the helium is not as pure as stated. Now I am thinking about replacing the helium. I don't want to damage the pump.

[@heinrichhein2605]

@@AdvancedTinkering but i dont think you have to hurry that much, i dont think you will run it so much that it does something big. But for long term i would try to change it, as you know they are hard to get and replacement parts as well and expensive.

[@christopherleubner6633]

They have started making baloon helium with 85% He and 15% O2 because people were using those tanks for exit bags and masks. The old mix used to be 80% He 20% N2. These pumps really need pure He to work as intended, but less pure isnt gonna cause too many problems as long as the gas is dry and has no CO2. It will run fine on pure H2 as well. Also your liquid air using this method is mostly oxygen and argon. 🤓😁

[@wsn1192]

eat the indium! keep on

[@10babiscar]

4:33 is that sound the compressor or techno?

[@Rob.P974]

😅

[@tomh2628]

Probably not very safe but you could use the pump to make dinitrogen tetroxide. You could even turn the N2O4 into N2O5 with ozone. Dinitrogen pentoxide is a new nitrating agent or could be used to make ammonium dinitramide. I like your idea of making pure liquid gasses though!

[@leocurious9919]

You don't need a special cooling setup just to make (do you mean liquefy?) N2O4.

[@aljenembtry7781]

How much was your set up

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Hi, I'm guessing you are talking about the cryopump? I got it really cheap from a viewer. Normally they are pretty expensive. Way to expensive for me at least. Hyperspace Pirat made a video where he tries to build a pulse tube cryocooler. Hopefully he will be successful in building one capable of liquefying nitrogen.

[@VerbenaIDK]

10 K? LH2?

[@mr.fredricklawngtawnghedav5094]

I'll bet your neighbors 💘 you

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Haha! They actually do like me. (I think)

[@mr.fredricklawngtawnghedav5094]

@@AdvancedTinkering oh I'm sure they do too. I'm just razzing ya man. If I did the hobbies around here that you do wherever you are.( To me your accent sounds... German.) Although your obviously fluent in English. Well it wouldn't be very funny. I could get shot if I go to the pharmacy and in a German type accent say. Well. It wouldn't sound like you. I'm not trying to insult you. Where you live is probably way less paranoid than where I stay. I'm talking about the people.

[@mr.fredricklawngtawnghedav5094]

Man! I wanna live in the town where you stay. Everyday I would go to the drugs store. Yes, I have list Mr. Pharmaceutical elements supply worker. 5lbs RP. 5gal I. 1.0 oz allergy tablets 5gal H202 ECT.ECT.ECT.EXT

[@mr.fredricklawngtawnghedav5094]

You're koool. I'm more like you . I kinda don't fit in where I stay. I don't like gangs. I want intelligent friends. I want to persue my interest in all the scientific knowledge of now. Problem is.... I'm considered abnormal for these notions.

[@ugarit5404]

Try cool an image sensor and check what noise yoi get

[@veloknights8252]

Geil 😍

[@victorsykes5334]

Make a indium tin oxide crystal

[@sealpiercing8476]

Swank af

[@chrisp190]

I thought the helium from those tanks is mixed with 20% oxygen so people don't unalive themselves?

[@AdvancedTinkering]

I heard of those mixtures but this balloon gas is, according to the manufacturer, 99.996 % pure.

[@ThomasGrillo]

"Liquified air". Isn't that liquid oxygen? Thanks for the demo. :)

[@AdvancedTinkering]

It's a mixture consisting of liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen.

[@ThomasGrillo]

@@AdvancedTinkering Ah, ok. Nitrox. Cool. :)

[@jeffstevens781]

This may be a stupid question but of you left the pump running without the collector attached would the cooling element cause the temperature of the room to drop, offsetting and exceeding the heat being generated in the operation or will they cancel each other out and maintain whatever current temperature the room is?

[@tamazerd]

Energy is constant, so there's no magic way of cooling down a room. You have two flows in this case, the addition of electric energy to the pump that is converted into heat and heating the room, and the subtraction of heat through the cooling water going down the drain. The pump is only moving heat from the cold side to the water, the question is how efficient it is. It it moves more heat energy to the water than the electric energy needed to run the pump the room will slowly cool down, if not, the room will slowly heat up.

[@ambersmith6517]

How about using two tools so you dont end up breaking something when tightening two sets of pliers lol lol

[@franzjosef7388]

shouldn't measuring the temperature of the boiling Liquidified Air reveal its constitution?!

[@EliasExperiments]

Hi awesome video! What part of germany are you from? I always wanted to make a video about liquid hydrogen, maybe that would be something for a collaboration if you are interested. ;-)

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Thank you! I live in Hessen. I would really like to do a collaboration but I think moving the cold head and compressor would be a huge hassle. And I have to test how cold it gets under vacuum. At ambient pressure the temperature won't drop below the condensation point of nitrogen. How do you plan on supplying the hydrogen? Using a gas cylinder or making it via hydrolysis?

[@EliasExperiments]

@@AdvancedTinkering My reply yesterday got deleted for some reason. Probably because I added contact details. Well I live in hessen too so that is great! I would definetly use a hydrogen cylinder. Everything else will probably make it too complicated. I will write you an email tomorow with my contact details, so we can talk about this if you want.

[@PeterPete]

Where was the 78% liquid nitrogen in the liquid air? If a glowing piece of newspaper isn't able to relight in air then it shouldn't relight in liquid air. Imo air does not contain oxygen or nitrogen so all you produced was liquid air that had oxygen-like properties due to the way it's been processed. The cryocooler contracted and concentrated the air into a liquid so that it was able to relight a glowing splint 👍

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Air does contain oxygen and nitrogen. Due to the lower boiling point of nitrogen, it will condense slower than oxygen and evaporate quicker than oxygen. I you let liquid air stand for a while, you will be left with liquid oxygen. The blue color and thay it reignites glowing paper is a strong indicator for a high oxygen concentration.

[@PeterPete]

@08:01 The liquid in the glass doesn't look blue, only the shadow of the beaker on the white mat looks blue. I've watched another video of someone do something similar and his liquid air wasn't blue either. So if as you say the liquid nitrogen has gassed off, where's the oxygen? @@AdvancedTinkering

[@AdvancedTinkering]

It's pretty hard to capture faint colors like this on camera. But I can assure you it was blue. Not as blue as pure liquid oxygen but noticeable.

[@PeterPete]

sorry but there's a lot of confusion because according to applied science and his video Liquid Nitrogen Generator - Overview, he produces liquid air in the video and his is NOT blue. He even says that it does not have a tint of blue to it. I'm sure he would have wanted his liquid nitrogen to have gassed off to have shown the blue tint of the liquid oxygen but he never did this in his video. I cannot accept your word when another person is doing the same thing and gets a different result. From your video, I cannot see a liquid with a blue tint. So where's the oxygen? @@AdvancedTinkering

[@AdvancedTinkering]

I don't know what to tell you. You are correct about liquid air not being blue. But it's simple physics. Nitrogen has the lower boiling point and evaporates first, resulting in a higher concentration of oxygen in the leftover liquefied gasses. I'm not sure if there is an azeotrope between oxygen and nitrogen but I can assure you that the oxygen concentration increases to a point were you can see the blue color.

[@SnowblindOtter]

I'm not going to crucify you for not using a proper wrench, since you DID use a wrench. I'm going to crucify you for referring to a spanner as a wrench! No, but an interesting experiment, if you could figure out a set-up, would be to see if it's possible/practical to use cryogenically liquefied gases as a source of completely dry high-pressure air for storage in SCUBA tanks.

[@AdvancedTinkering]

Haha, I still get the some terminology wrong in English. Thanks for pointing that out!

[@SnowblindOtter]

​@@AdvancedTinkering You didn't use any wrong terminology, actually. All spanners are wrenches in English, but not all wrenches are spanners. It's like coloring with all the colours of the rainbow on aluminum foil while wearing an aluminium hat.

[@jamesendsley1560]

You know you could look into making liquid nitrogen with one of those that's how a king of random did before he died he used to make his own liquid nitrogen for his experiments

[@AdvancedTinkering]

I tried using my oxygen concentrator as a cheap nitrogen concentrator, but there is still some oxygen left. I need a Nitrogen separation membrane.

[@KallePihlajasaari]

@@AdvancedTinkering I have been wondering if one looked at the plumbing of a O2 concentrator and a N2 concentrator (as used to make 'air' for tyres) and see if one can swap the plumbing around a bit to favour the purity of the N2 stream.

[@NewZealandPakeha]

Cool