[willis936]

Yep. Ten years ago helium recycling in cryogenics was unheard of. Today not recycling helium in cryogenics is unheard of. You send it back to be purified and condensed and some of the savings is passed back to the customer.

Nobody cared when it cost $0.50/l. They do when it’s $5/l.

[amluto]

Ten years ago I worked in a building with a helium liquified for recycling. I also knew someone who bought a fancy cryogenic system that didn’t consume helium because it was worth the premium to avoid needing to pay for helium.

Do you perhaps mean twenty years ago?

[tgflynn]

> Ten years ago helium recycling in cryogenics was unheard of.

That depends on both time period and location.

In the late 80's I worked in a physics lab in the US that had an old helium recuperation system installed (as gas, I don't think they had a liquifier) but it wasn't in use, we just boiled off 100's to 1000's of liters each week. I assume it must have been used at some point in time though.

In Europe helium has traditionally been much more expensive than in the US (not sure about the situation currently) and I think many labs recovered it. At CERN all the helium was reliquified, except for one time when the liquifier broke down and they boiled off about 20000 liters testing LEP superconducting RF cavities.