When helium is released into the atmosphere — whether for groundbreaking NASA research or a fifth-grade science fair — it can never be used again.
Next month, Ohio University will be able to capture and recycle the rare element with a new helium liquefier developed by two of campus’ most resourceful men.
Doug Shafer and Jeremy Dennison are constantly assisting research in OU’s physics department. Almost every project that has earned the department a reputation in the physics world started in their dusty dominion in the basement of Clippinger Hall.
In that physics machine shop, the two toolmakers sift through scientists’ jumbled ideas and crank out intricate gizmos.
The helium liquefier — which will cost nearly $1 million when it is finished — has been their biggest project of the year. It will capture nearly 95 percent of the helium used during research and compress it into liquid form to be reused. The cost of helium is constantly rising because of its increasing rarity, but the scientific need for it never subsides.
Today, 100 liters of the helium costs nearly $15,000 and supports less than a week of work in one of OU’s three labs.
“This is not something you can find just anywhere,” Shafer said about the new facility, which will only be the second helium liquefier in the state.
Wayne Chiasson, physics and astronomy department administrator at OU, said that the school is joining Cornell, MIT and Princeton as schools with its own helium liquefiers.
But reusing materials was a priority for the two shop workers long before the helium-recycling machine was introduced. Shelves of scrap brass, bronze and copper are stacked on every wall. Sheets of steel and acrylic are propped up in different stock racks all over the shop floor.
“There’s an opportunity for everything we make to save material and a tremendous amount of machining time, which allows us to produce pieces in a timely fashion,” Shafer said.
Ralph Cade, the shop’s first supervisor, stocked it with old and worn machinery from surplus sales. These tools were snatched up at low prices and then repaired to work like new.
Today, these machines — some of which are still marked with NASA and U.S. Army crests — are vital to Shafer and Dennison’s everyday toolmaking.
“They have the know-how to make our research dollars go farther, and that puts us at a huge advantage,” Chiasson said. “The students and staff have a lot of respect for our shop workers.”
The pair can be found on any given weekday in the basement of Clippinger, hammering away at the next potential landmark in scientific research.
“We could probably make more money at other places, but here we make stuff that really matters,” Dennison said. “Think about it, everything you use in your daily life, a toolmaker has put his hands on at one time or another. That is cool.”
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