JOULE-THOMSON COOLING WITH BINARY-MIXTURES

The possibility of achieving temperatures below that of liquid nitroge n for applications in miniature one-shot Joule-Thomson (J-T) coolers u sing a mixture of nitrogen and neon gases is discussed. An expression for the maximum inversion temperature of binary mixtures is derived. I t is shown that it is possible to achieve temperatures near the triple point of nitrogen (63 K) with a mixture of neon and nitrogen. (C) 199 8 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.