Development of Cryocooler Based High Performance Cryosorption Pump

Abstract

The aim of this work is to develop high performance cryosorption (or cryoadsorption) pumps specifically for fusion applications. An actual cryopump for the above application will use the supercritical liquid helium flow through the channels embedded in the large scale cryopanels. In this case, the liquid helium requirement (both as normal and as supercritical fluids) will be large, depending on the size of the cryosorption pump. However, in a research laboratory wherein such large quantities of liquid helium are not available, an alternate arrangement of cooling the cryopanels has to be considered. One of the possible options can then be as follows. A scaled-down version of the cryopanel can be used and cooled by a two stage cryo-refrigerator system with adequate cooling power. This system is known as cryocooler based cryosorption pump. Due to the availability of a two stage GM cryocooler with a refrigeration power of ~ 1.5 W at 4.2 K in our laboratory, which can be used for the above purpose, the main objective of this work is the development of a cryocooler based high performance cryosorption pump . The cryopanel which is mounted on the second stage cold head of the cryocooler is not necessarily a single panel, but is usually a set of panels (stacked one over the other) and consists of mainly three components and they are: (a) the metallic panel made of copper and cooled by the cryocooler (b) the adhesive to bind the adsorbent onto the metallic panel and (c) the adsorbent (in the present case, activated carbon (AC)) which is used to adsorb the gas molecules. By this arrangement, the adsorbent gets cooled to the lowest possible temperature to enable cryopumping. To develop the cryocooler based high performance cryosorption pump, we need to select: (a) the best adsorbent (with large adsorption surface area) and adhere it on a cryopanel to evaluate its performance as a cryopump and (b) the best adhesive with high thermal conductivity, high bonding strength and ability to withstand several thermal cycles. The surf