Construction of the facility was completed in January of 2015, and the first recovered helium was supplied to the Department of Physics in March. Pitt Cryogenics is able to provide the University community with research-grade recycled helium at rates greatly reduced from the virgin helium prices provided by outside vendors. To help minimize the impact on its researchers, the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh in partnership with the NSF invested in the creation of a helium recovery program and associated cost recovery center. The cost of research-grade helium has increased up to 400% from 2010 to 2013 in some regions since the federal government has started the process of selling off the Federal Helium Reserve. Helium is entirely nonrenewable, produced as a byproduct of certain mining operations, and once it is released it quickly escapes the Earth’s atmosphere. Helium is usually used in a once-through process where compressed liquid helium is inserted into a cryostat and gaseous helium, created as the liquid boils, is expelled into the atmosphere.
In its liquid form, which boils at 4 Kelvin (or negative 452 Fahrenheit), helium is used to ensure superconductivity for high end scientific instrumentation in chemistry, biology, and medicine including magnetic resonance imagers (MRIs) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers (NMRs), as well as for state of the art solid state research in physics and materials science. Helium is a critical component of cutting edge research. The Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences manages a Helium Recovery Program that re-liquefies Helium for reuse in University research experiments. Helium, a critical component of cutting edge research at Pitt, is a nonrenewable resource that is usually used once and then expelled into the atmosphere, but not at Pitt.
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