Helium is one of the only elements on Earth that is an entirely nonrenewable resource—and it’s rapidly depleting. Every time we pop a balloon, for example, that helium is released and gone forever.
Helium is critical for scientific research and medical diagnostic equipment, including MRI machines and NMR spectrometers. UVM’s Discovery Hall lost more than 2,400 pounds of liquid helium a year until the new helium recovery system was installed last summer. It now helps recover about 95 percent of helium used from six scientific instruments in the building.
Associate Professor Matthew Liptak was awarded a $174,710 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to install and manage the system. The UVM Office of the Provost and the UVM Office of the Vice President for Research also contributed $51,416.
“The motivation for using helium is that it has one of the lowest boiling points—minus 429 Fahrenheit—and that makes it a very good refrigerant. You need helium for high-end, large magnets,” says Liptak. “Having a reliable, variable volume supply of liquid helium enables us to follow a research strategy that prioritizes research need over material supply.”
Discovery Hall opened in 2017 and was designed to accommodate a helium recovery system as piping for helium recovery was installed during construction. Designed and installed by Syracuse-based Croymech, the helium recovery system is housed in two rooms in the basement of the building. It captures helium from the first floor, where helium-cooling instruments are used in the Chemistry Department’s research laboratories.
Before last summer, the Department of Chemistry purchased liquid helium from a helium supplier located 350 miles away. Liptak says that arrangement created challenges and wasn’t environmentally or financially practical.
“The issue was that we had been purchasing liquid helium gas from Pennsylvania. It was expensive and not sustainable, and the supply was running out.” Liptak says.
How Helium Recovery Works
The research instruments used in Discovery Hall include helium outlet ports that release all helium gas boil-off during normal operations. This boil-off is piped into existing recovery lines to the dedicated recovery room in the basement. From there, the helium is compressed, purified, and liquified over a 10-day period, Liptak says.
Monika Ivancic, Ph.D., an NMR Facility Manager in the Department of Chemistry, oversees the recovery system, managing everything from the liquefier usage schedule to logging actual usage.
“The system fits well with UVM’s sustainability mission,” she says. “It takes a lot of power to run it, but at the same time, we’re recovering helium and not letting it go off into space.”
Also helping to maintain the system is Taylor Kocian, a third-year graduate student who researches with Dr. Liptak. Part of what fascinates Kocian is that the helium recovered in the building is then used on her own inorganic chemistry research projects.
“It’s really valuable to be working with a relatively rare system, and it’s also rare for a graduate student to get to work on a system like this,” she says.
Liptak says helium recovery systems are becoming an increasingly attractive option for colleges and universities, especially as helium becomes more expensive and harder to obtain.
“Essentially, any college with a science department needs one,” he says. “There’s a real helium shortage, and there’s a tiered list of universities and colleges who need funding for helium recovery systems. Fortunately, UVM is at the top of the list as a research institution with a medical center, and we secured the funding we needed.”