The U.S. just sold its helium stockpile. Here’s why the medical world is worried.
The U.S. just sold its helium stockpile. Here’s why the medical world is worried.
MRI machines need thousands of liters of liquid helium to function. Health care workers say they can’t afford any disruptions to the helium supply chain.
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the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work.
I didn't know that elements had a defined temperature. Bang up reporting there, NBC.
Helium doesn't freeze because quantum mechanics. gestures furious
That means liquid helium can cool stuff to temperatures where nitrogen would be solid. This is used on the superconducting magnets in MRIs.Helium can be cold enough for MRI yes. But the way its reported makes it seem that helium is always cold, which is not true.
If you treat Helium right he remains pretty chill. But if you wrong Helium, Helium gonna get cold as ice.
Helium is right behind you
Sure, but they're right that is the only elements that works for this purpose.
"remains liquid at cold enough temperatures" != "the element is cold enough"
I bet it is frozen at 0 K
They're not here to teach you, they're here to sell clicks
Elements certainly do have defined temperatures! In this case it's the freezing temperature that matters, which for helium is... not.
Ok what temperature is iron then?
The freezing temp of iron? It is about 1200°c
Well, they're not really wrong, there's are only two elements that make any sense to use here, helium and hydrogen.
The thing is, the job they want these elements for is as a coolant. The best state of matter for a coolant is definitely liquid, a liquid flows much better and makes better contact for thermal transfer than a solid, and it's much more dense than a gas (so it can pull more heat away).
But, at these very low temperatures, the only elements that won't freeze into a solid are helium and hydrogen. That said, hydrogen would make an even more efficient coolant than helium, so they're wrong that helium is the only elements that works. Hydrogen is pretty impractical though, it's hard to contain, it reacts with everything, it's more expensive.