Liquid Helium in the MRI Industry

Liquid helium is used to cool down the superconductive magnets coil in MRI scanners to a temperature below 10 Kelvin. Superconductivity is a physical effect that occurs in various materials when they are subjected to extremely low temperatures. Superconductivity enables an electrical current to flow through an electrical conductor without creating electrical resistance, resulting in zero losses. Liquid helium is the only medium cold enough to promote superconductivity in metal alloys.

Messer provides cool-down services and the supply of liquid helium to the MRI community. We supply not only to MRI’s located at hospitals and Imaging Centers through Messer’s ColdServe™ Service, but also to the factories where the MRI’ are manufactured and tested.

Here we do much more that simple delivery of cryogens. We undertake the entire cool-down process from ambient temperature to the temperature of liquid helium and we deliver a MRI filled with liquid helium to the manufacturer as ‘ready to test’.

In addition to that Messer is handling helium inventory management, usage optimization and helium recovery and recycling at the MRI production sites.