Liquid Nitrogen Generator - Overview
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ส.ค. 2024
- This liquid nitrogen generator uses a Stirling-cycle cryocooler that was pulled from a cellular phone tower. It was used to cool a superconducting RF filter that aids cell communications. The cryocooler is able to pump enough heat away from its cold end that air will liquify and drip into a vacuum flask for storage.
Jeri's video at Maker Faire 2010: • DIY Liquid Nitrogen fo...
Blog post with more construction details: benkrasnow.blog...
This channel amazes me. I'm currently studying thermodynamics with all sorts of stuff that I would only expect in a multi-million dollar power plant with years of planning, and then Ben comes along and builds something like this on his lab bench like it was Lego. Truly astonishing.
Evidently, you haven't seen the video where he casually upgrades an old electron microscope to be modern so it can keep his home-made one company.
Nitrogen I can get, Oxygen is harder. I may build something like this to make liquid O2. I think I'll also make the cryo cooller because why not! ;)
keep your hands in tact I like your vids Cody
+Cody'sLab You are in luck. The boiling point of nitrogen is lower than oxygen, so if you connect an oxygen cylinder (eg for welding) to some copper tubing, and submerge part of the tubing in LN2, you will get liquid oxygen out the end as it condenses in the tubing. Direct it into a styrofoam cup or thermos, and voila! There is an ancient video on my channel showing me pouring liquid oxygen onto a charcoal briquette fire. It's fun! Your videos are great!
You really should. I'd love to see you make that and do some experiments with LOX. Maybe even a hybrid rocket using LOX you made.
why do you not separate the Oxygen from the liquid Air at the end with The magnet? the assembly would be so more efficient and also compact
let's go ahead and make it Cody, I love you Videos
Just wanted to thank Ben for this channel. What an inspirational human being.
guitron Thanks! I really appreciate it!
Applied Science what if you use magnets to seperate the nitrogen from the oxygen when its in the liquid phase!!
MysteriusBhoice what molecule is polarized?
NwoDispatcher oxygen is paramagnetic
Man, rock on. This is awesome.
Hello NightHawkInLight, fancy seeing you here!
Thanks for making these videos.
Eugene Khutoryansky Hai i see you are on every good videos :)
I like to think of myself as pretty well educated, and then this guy comes along and I realize that I don't know jack about engineering. Touche applied science.
The more you know, the more you come to know the less you know. Its great! Aha
Super cool video from Ben Krasnow...with liquid air!
I learned so much in such little time. Awesome!
I wish Jeri would start making videos again. She's awesome. I've learned a lot from the videos she has up. I hope she's doing well.
Cool Ben! Really cool.... Literally!
Superb job!
I've never heard such a clear explanation of the Stirling cycle before. Thank you!
Yeah you have to use a desiccant to effectively dry the air. I've worked fairly extensively with these systems and the best approach is generally to have two pressure vessels that have a vibrating probe that vibrates at a rate inversely proportional to th dew point in the air. Then when one desiccant gets saturated, you can switch to the other, and send the first vessel into a regenerative cycle that involves back flowing hot air through the desiccant to remove the moisture.
Jeri Ellsworth and Ben Krasnow, two of the biggest badasses in the diy engineering community
I would say that I'm a smart man but watch all your videos makes me feel dumb!!
but you make me work harder every day so that i can be as good as you some day!!
thanks!!!!!
Very nice Ben. Thank you.
The Signal Path Blog Hah, fancy seeing you here, Shahriar :)
My god, this is amazing. To even think this is possible in a home shop is so cool.
The clarity with which you explain things makes it very simple to grasp. Thank you.
How cool! There has been a lot of work experimenting with metals and cryogenically freezing them. The first article I read about was about a guy that bought a new Honda Car, not sure which one, who pulled the engine out and tore it completely apart. He then cryogenically froze the entire engine, letting it soak for several hours and then slowly bringing it back up to ambient temperature. When he reassembled it and put it back I to the car he found an decrease in fuel consumption and wear. That in itself was pretty amazing. A short time later some guitar string manufacturers began freezing their strings and found that they sounded brighter and lasted longer than untreated strings. It would be interesting to see what else can be done with liquid Nitrogen. Thanks for the video. It's going to help a lot of back yard experimenters!
Veritasium did this way simpler and on his living room floor, when you say your setup is convoluted, you got it dude
A/S Great Video - Its videos like this that bring the once taboo commercial technologies down too the reach and understanding of layman,.. you are truly a gift to mankind.
Every day Ben gets closer and closer to becoming an actual Mr. Freeze.
Keep up the enlightening videos, i'm a huge fan!
Love that line "Could have bought it cheaper, but you don't learn anything." I subscribed after hearing that.
I am grateful for this channel. Please never stop uploading!
Amazing man, watched half a dozen time and still find him interesting.
Really great stuff! I love that your channel is such a mixed bag. You never know what you'll find here so its always a great surprise!
You are freaking wizard 🙏 Even though I didn't understand half the stuff you were explained, it was still mesmerizing and educational to watch🙏 Thank you Mr. Professor
Your video is awesome, I just watched another youtubers cryo cooler vid and he goes out and just buys a cryo cooler, has no idea how any of it works, essentially just reads me a wikipedia article, and his video had a sponsor and a few million views, thats ridiculous, it's so sad TH-cam should be promoting videos like yours, you deserve more views please dont stop making videos!
this is by far the best channel im subscribed to
you made a reverse of a 'home oxygen concentrator' !! LOVE IT!!!!
I'm in awe of your ambition let alone your results !
Great video! Like how you pointed out the tip re the colour change. We used to regularly check our dewers of LN2 to make sure they weren't getting on the blue side of things.
Phenomenal video as always! It would be interesting to see how much liquid oxygen you could separate via magnetic fields.
As I said elsewhere to @Applied Science - Just put the magnet on the side of the cup or dewar and the LOX will go to it, which in turn will push the LN2 away from the magnet. The LOX zone will turn blue, and you will be able to extract fairly pure LOX from that zone, without the bother of distilling the liquids via reflux, as done commercially. You can also use any excess coldness of LN2 to pre-cool incoming air, increasing the liqufaction rate. For every drop of LOX produced, you will need about 2 drops of LN2 just because of the difference in heat capacity of the liquids. That leaves 2 more drops of LN2 to pre-cool the incoming air. If the air is dry, you will not waste cooling power on making ice and dry ice. _Contraflow heat exchangers_ are great for these effects.
Mr. Krasnov, you amaze me everytime. Congratulations for the great built.
It's always a treat to visit your channel ben. Thanks.
3:38 "As you can see it's completely pink now..."
I must be colorblind then, because I sure as hell don't see any pink on the beads!
It is very faintly pink
@@leejerrett8268 it goes from a very noticeable blue to a faint pink so the contrast makes it pretty obvious in use.
Love it, thanks Ben. Been needing something akin to this for some superconducting experiments
So would it be theoretically possible to use an electromagnet to separate the oxygen from the nitrogen? Maybe not completely but enough to get over 50% or more?
Larry Menasco Hmm, maybe a good topic for upcoming experiment!
I don't know about actual separation, but I've seen a tear down video (from mikeselectricstuff if I remember correctly) of an oxygen concentration sensor/measurement device that was based on magnetic effects.
Larry Menasco My thoughts exactly!
Larry Menasco Or even permanent magnets on a rotating wheel with a wiper
Applied Science I'd watch that. How hard would it be to build your own sterling pump? It seems like tuning the counter balance would be one of the biggest challenges.
The spring mass system shown is not for damping. It is to tune the displacer. The voicecoil in the unit drives the piston. The mass of the damper and the spring constant is tuned so that the pneumatic "helium spring" driven motion of the displacer by the voicecoil- driven piston is tuned close to the piston drive frequency by lagging in phase by an amount that will allow a reasonably efficient Stirling cycle phase lag. There is generally a similar tuned spring system attached to the piston tuned to the voice coil H-bridge drive frequency. The phase lag means that the displacer phase will never "cog" or jump a step, and remain faithfully at the design phase lag desired. This allows a smaller, less expensive, more reliable cooler than introducing a mechanically enforced phase lag.
This method is used in a wide variety of commercial linear compressor coolers.
Thank you for all the videos. It inspires me to tinker and learn more.
I do enjoy your videos quite a lot, please keep them coming. Thank you for taking the time to produce and upload them. Fascinating.
Probably one of the coolest videos I have ever seen, this guy never fails to amaze me! Tell me again why your NOT working for NASA?
Very cool video, Ben [I know, bad pun]
lots of interesting components explained. I worked for high vacuum semiconductor equipment manufacturers - back in the day. Brings me back. I was going to be like you when I grew up but took the wrong turn at party central.
Again, very interesting stuff. One more thing: I remember the sound of helium cryopumps, they always had a low-frequency(approximately one second) almost a slow, steam engine sound to them. Thank you.
Thank you Ben, for continuing to use your powers for good. Very interesting, as always.
I'm looking back at your videos and man, this is cool stuff
Did you ever thought of making a small scale rocket engine with liquid nitrogen and oxygen? You already have the needed tech. :P
You can dry the gas to a very high degree by passing it through a column of NaOH pellets, available from your local supermarket probably.
The paramagnetic demo makes me wonder if you could partially separate the liquid air with a magnet array and vent from an oxygen enriched side chamber.
How how a electromagnetic waveguide? You could use a series of electromagnetic fields to move the O2 along
I always love the way he ends his videos. Just wanted to show you that I am capable of playing around with the forces of nature.... well, see ya.
I like your science pole. Useful for pointing at manifolds and apparati.
You overclocked your LN2 generator so you can get LN2 for overclocking faster... I like this channel.
This is so cool! I really want a cryo cooler my self.
So how long does the compressor need to run to collect enough gas that would then yeild an equal volume to the amount of liquid air you had in the cup? I would guess it's quite a while....
Peter Brown The more important question is: Can you add epoxy to it and turn it on a lathe?
Way late on this but its continuous flow
3:02 "I could have a a commercial air dryer but then you don't learn anything." Thats my life story.
thank you so much for producing these videos
the specialized equipment you have is amazing
This video is awesome. I had no idea that devices that freezes temperatures so low could be so small. Also got me thinking that superconductive application doesn't have to be extremely complicated when maybe cryocooler could be made even smaller and fit into smaller devices with an automatic handled superconductive solution.
engineers, wielders, chemist.. you guys are smart
you got to add another 30 seconds in the end so that we have time to subscribe and like. Great videos dude.
This is just great. I was going to say it's super cool but that may have been taken wrong.
How in the world did you figure on that telecom equipment to manage the cooling system? Further, how in the world did you find software to control the darned thing!?
You are only one who can explain best by such Awesome expensive Experiments 👍👍 so please Make some videos on #Super strong And Super Conductive Material #Graphene !!!! and its Batteries !!!!! , many other TH-camrs shows it's very easy to make by pulling out Graphite using sticky tape you can make super conductor Graphene , but tried it many times , but that's what i found that's not more then super Resistor . instead Conductor !!!!!!!!! ????
We had a shuttle experiment years ago that used TEC's as the heat pump. When the cold side was exposed to air, liquid air dropped from it quite fast at 280 watts input. I don't see how that isn't the cheapest and most efficient way to make it. The humidity turns straight into ice and should be simple to run a defrost cycle on it occasionally, but the rough ice surface presents a lot more surface area to seed the liquification of air. A simple magnetic concentrator could be used to separate the oxygen and nitrogen, but even more simple would be to have 2 TECs, the first set at a temp half way between lox and lni, then duct this first stage to a second stage that is well below lni. 2 separate distillers giving 2 separate liquids into 2 separate dewers. Easy peasy. Perfectly quiet solid state solution.
Come to think of it, a first stage running at 0.5C should distill out all the water, the the second stage could be set at -195C and the third at -250C. The whole airflow through the stages could be gravity fed.
Very nice, I'm just starting to dip in to your video library.
A question I have is, how much did the cryocooler cost and where did you get it from?
I suppose one could separate LN2 and O2 magnetically as well no? put really dry air into the chiller, and pass through some sort of apparatus that would apply a magnetic field pulling the O2 one way and allowing the LN2 to pass.
+Skwisgar2322 Ahh, seems i was not the first parson to think of that (as usual) www.google.com/patents/US4704139 though that seems to be operating on the gas not liquid phase.
Very interesting video!
Despite the fact I have no idea what you said, I was captivated and interested the entire time!
Next video, you should tell us what is going on in English xD
I see a lot of potential here. I was thinking of making my own electronic flow meter. There are the cheap plastic type, and the expensive servo-motor type of needle valve controllers. A cheap way to get one is to gut a Mass Flow controller used to make semiconductor wafers. I used to work for a company that made them: Unit Instruments, Yorba Linda, CA.
You've probably already considered this, but have you considered any novel methods of separating liquid air with mechanical means exploiting the difference in paramagnetism? It seems that one could possibly reduce the complexity of the apparatus.
This is extremely cool 8-) (pun intended). Great work! I wonder if more powerful dessicants can be used instead of silica gel. Concentrated H2SO4 or P2O5 would be ideal I think, but there are probably too corrosive, an agent that chemically binds the water instead of just adsorbing it would be swell. But as for adsorbants: I wonder if molecular sieves would do the job? Anyway, I am very impressed, I just wonder how much the whole setup costed? Used cryocoolers alone go from $500 to $2000 on Ebay.
heat dpi route to the converter with temps in kelvin is pretty cool, small piston stp monitoring, wow, good video
Very cool set up! makes me wonder if the best way to purify the air as it flows through the system is a series of condensations. Compress the air, then cool it in stages to separate out first water, then oxygen and then finally the nitrogen. Might even be able to dial it in to get liquid argon or dry ice.
Thanks for the info. That sterling compressor is awesome!!!
Amazing. I predict, that some time Ben will make a video about diy nuclear fusion reactor. :p
viesic I don't think he will do a nuclear reactor but definitely an ion plasma drive
I believe if you leave the open container of liquid air the percentage of oxygen will increase as the nitrogen boils off but the liquid is still cold enough to condense the oxygen from the air, due to its slightly higher boiling point. this is why lN2 dewars will usually have a one way vent or a loose seal on them.
It would be an interesting exercise to use the stirling cooler to build a cryogen-free cryostat. perhaps some low temperature experiments on ICs or viewing changes in optical or magnetic properties of materials as a function of temperature.
best build I've ever seen
You are quite the engineer. Love the videos! Keep it up!
I was captivated the whole time by your video, amazing stuff. so cool! pun definitely intended.
The end attachment for the cryogenic rod probably would of helped liquefying the gas a lot with that surface area, to really know would be to check and make sure that the freezer remove enough heat to cool the attachment.
Could you separate the liquid oxygen from the nitrogen in bulk using magnetism? You could get 2 fun cryogenic liquids at once from the same setup! (one to start fires and one to put them out).
Another excellent video! Have you considered using the mechanics of a medical oxygen concentration to generate your nitrogen? As I understand it, when air is compressed in a cylinder filled with zeolite, the nitrogen is absorbed leaving oxygen to pass through. When the cylinder is de-pressurized, the nitrogen is released which you can capture for liquification.
How did you remove the fins? Were they brazed on and you removed the solder or did you just cut them off?
Really cool setup. I think it would be really interesting to hook the cryogenic compressor to an electrolysis setup to make liquid H2 or liquid O2 and make a powerful rocket with the product.
Wow making liquid nitrogen and oxygen takes a lot of power.
I love this chanel for everyones information.
how much electricity required to converted air into liquid air, for one kg of liquid air required how much kilowatt's hours of electricity
Would it be possible to distill the liquid air? You should be able to purify the gas by letting the nitrogen evaporate and then condensing it on the cooler.
What an awesome project
Very interesting......just what do you want that much liquid Nitrogen for?
He just uploaded the video about cryogenic treatment of steel drills
You can use what’s called a potential relay with a start capacitor to start the compressor with a differential of pressure in it instead of using that spring thing, and you could also go to a refrigeration supplier and pick up a oil separator which is basically the same as the coalescing one but much bigger and it will have a oil return line to bring back the oil to the compressor
Thanks Ben. Really interesting stuff!
That's a very cool setup.
cool demo & explanation
Great demo! I love it. Could you use the oxygen magnetic properties for somehow rig a system to separate the O2 and Nitrogen?
I have to assume a magnet on the bottom of the container would allow skimming nitrogen into another container
would it be possible to use one of those cryocoolers in extreme overclocking? The whole reason that we don't have 9 ghz processors in all our gaming desktops is because you need liquid nitrogen to pull that off, and liquid helium to get any further.
Do commercial operations collect some compressed air and use pressure and temperature to condense oxygen first? Then cool further to make liquid nitrogen if needed.
Gas doesnt always get cold when expanding. The Joule-Thompson coefficient can tell you at which temperatures a gas cools down or heats up due to expansion. For example Helium and has only repulsive forces at temperatures above the immersion temperature. It will heat up wen expanded at more than 40K if i remember it correctly.
Very cool. Is there a reason (apart from efficiency) not to do the separation at the liquid side through magnetic fields?
Allan Stirling I doubt you could efficiently remove all the oxygen via magnets and there's still a bunch of water in that cup.
Allan Stirling I couldn't (quickly) find any information I could readily understand that shows how well mixed the two liquids are, or how easy it would be to separate them. A quick look shows that liquid nitrogen is a bit less than twice the weight of liquid oxygen, so perhaps spin separation could work. They also have slightly different boiling points, so some precise temperature control could boil one off and keep the other.
I guess it comes down to how easily you can get a filter on the room temperature gas stage to purify the nitrogen, and if you'd rather avoid having to deal with high concentrations of oxygen to begin with.
With that said, it would be pretty interesting to see some kind of electromagnetic elevator siphoning oxygen out of liquid air like a solid state pump.
Would it be simpler to make liquid air and use a magnet conveyor to remove the oxygen?
Well you need to take into account all the moisture in the air
Submerged superconductive magnets? N2 is also lighter than O2 which would aide in separation. Between magnetic effects and a minor difference in relative densities perhaps the N2 could be floated off.
Bingo - Fractional Distillation, the same process that is used in oil refineries.
I'm thinking to increase water absorption of the silica gel you might try fine grinding it to a powder, then bag it inside filter paper to keep it in place. Thanks for sharing :)
Five years later but still right on time🤓
Pure liquid oxygen is kinda scary to handle since it's so reactive. Its magnetic nature is pretty interesting, you wouldn't think it would be at first. Periodic Videos has a couple good vids on it. Worth the watch.
Great video! But why does nitrogen stay in the membrane tube while oxygen escapes? Oxygen molecule is larger, isn't it?
Totally awesome! You're videos are so interesting! Thanks for sharing!