The Instrumentation Center has begun capturing the helium boil off from the NMR magnets. In the basement of CRB is the new Helium recovery system. Each magnet in CRB 100 and the new center in the KCL basement will have its helium exhaust port connected to the system. As helium gas is vented it enters the system and is piped down to fill a large bladder which covers the entire space on top of the enclosure (the big black bag on top). When the bladder expands to a predetermined size a compressor starts up and empties the contents of the bladder into 4 high pressure tanks. From there the helium runs through a purifier and turned back into liquid helium. Our initial experience shows that we can recover between 20 and 30 liters of helium each day.
We have posted a video detailing the system on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/yalecbic