For students of our course Refrigeration B, we offer a day trip to the Mineralölraffinierien Oberrhein (MiRO) during the summer term. The excursion includes lectures, a meal and a guided tour of the site. The tour gives an in-depth view inside industrial oil and gas processing featuring the refrigeration concepts presented in our course.

During the winter term we offer a day trip to the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment at KIT Campus North. It aims at measuring the mass scale of neutrinos, which are also called the ghost particles of the Universe. The KATRIN plant exceeds 70 m in length and its main spectrometer has a diameter of 10 m.

While cryogenics is needed for reaching the ultra high vacuum conditions, the major cryogenic challenge is the Windowless Gaseous Tritium Source (WGTS) operated at 27 K. The operation requires a temperature stability on the permille level. For this purpose, Prof. Grohmann developed a novel cooling concept, based on a Neon thermosiphon, reaching stabilities in the mK range.

Cryogenics also plays an important role in tritium trapping using a cryogenic pumping section operated with Argon frost at 6 K. Also, tritium needs to be recovered in a cryogenic rectification column.

Since the CERN tour involves longterm planning, we are sorry to announce that there will be no Pfingstexkursion in 2022.

Meanwhile, you can read about our Pfingstexkursion 2018 to CERN and the PSI in the 82^nd edition of the student council's journal Schärfer Bitte! (German only).