Göttingen 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 79: Methods in Astroparticle Physics III

T 79.2: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 3. April 2025, 16:30–16:45, VG 3.101

Developing a cryogenic heat pump for liquid xenon radon removal systems — •Philipp Schulte, Lutz Althüser, Robert Braun, Hannah Ginkel, Volker Hannen, Christian Huhmann, David Koke, Patrick Unkhoff, Daniel Wenz, and Christian Weinheimer — Institute for Nuclear Physics, University of Münster

Future liquid xenon (LXe) dark matter detectors require a detector background 10 times smaller than the solar neutrino background. Achieving this requires reducing the 222Rn concentration in LXe to <0.1 µBq/kg - corresponding to less than one 222Rn atom in 160 mol xenon. The ERC project "LowRad" aims to develop the next generation of radon and krypton removal technology using cryogenic distillation. By exploiting the different vapour pressures of xenon and radon, radon is removed through repeated evaporation and condensation in a large surface area distillation column with partial reflux. To reach this low radon concentration, the throughput flow of the column must increase, as higher flow rates remove more radon per time, lowering its concentration in the detector. This requires scaling up from 65 kg/h (XENONnT) to ∼750 kg/h, with O(20) kW of heating and cooling power for the evaporation and reliquification. Therefore, an additional heat pump circuit using xenon as the working medium is being developed to lower the cooling requirement to the thermodynamic input of the heat pump. This talk will explain the working principle of cryogenic distillation and the heat pump, as well as the results from its development. Acknowledging the support of the ERC AdG project "LowRad" (101055063).