Posted: 16 September 2022
The Swedish Museum of Natural History is located in Stockholm and was founded in 1819 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The museum also houses Cosmonova, the world's largest projection theatre and planetarium.
Previously ATC had supplied the museums Nordsim group with a K3 chiller which was in reliable service for over 12
years. When the chiller finally started to show signs of age the technical team for the laboratory came straight to ATC to get a like for like replacement.
The Nordsim laboratory is
part of the Department of Geosciences and jointly funded by Sweden, Norway,
Finland and Denmark.
Key to their research
methodology is a Cameca 1280 ion microprobe, an advanced mass spectrometer
which allows direct in situ measurement of isotopic and elemental composition
in selected micrometer sized areas of a sample.
The instrument is applied to
a wide range of geological problems, from U-Pb and O isotopes in zircons to
light stable isotope analysis of lunar and meteoritic samples.
Martin Whitehouse, Professor, Senior Researcher
and Head of Nordsim at the Natural History Museum of Sweden says of the direct
replacement “we replaced the ATC chiller like for like because it has performed
largely without problem (just two new fans in that time and does the job
perfectly). “The original K3 was purchased because of our earlier
positive experience with a K6 chiller supplied via Micromass for another
instrument, and that one is still running fine at nearly 20 years.”
The K3 cools the electronics and pumps on the
large ion microprobe, maintaining a temperature of 18⁰C. The
main reason for the selection of an external chiller was because the building
water was problematic (dirty, subject to shut off beyond the Museums control)
and it is hooked to the same UPS as the instrument, ensuring there are no
sudden stops if there is a loss of power (rare but not unknown in the
1916-vintage building).
Martin Whitehouse says of ATC, "I found ATC
very helpful and professional to deal with, the chiller they have supplied is
reliable, compact and very easy to operate, simply excellent!".
Find out more about the K3 chiller.