2012/04/26 by H. O. Back, T. Alexander, Back, H. O. +25
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #astro-ph.IM #hep-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1204.6061
Updated reference list
arxiv created 2012/05/01 · arxiv updated 2012/05/03
We report on the performance and commissioning of a cryogenic distillation column for low radioactivity underground argon at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The distillation column is designed to accept a mixture of argon, helium, and nitrogen and return pure argon with a nitrogen contamination less than 10 ppm. In the first commissioning, we were able to run the distillation column in a continuous mode and produce argon that is 99.9% pure. After running in a batch mode, the argon purity was increased to 99.95%, with 500 ppm of nitrogen remaining. The efficiency of collecting the argon from the gas mixture was between 70% and 81%, at an argon production rate of 0.84-0.98 kg/day.