Design and construction of a cryogenic distillation device for removal of krypton for liquid xenon dark matter detectors

Rev Sci Instrum. 2014 Jan;85(1):015116. doi: 10.1063/1.4861537.

Abstract

Liquid xenon (Xe) is one of the commendable detecting media for the dark matter detections. However, the small content of radioactive krypton-85 ((85)Kr) always exists in the commercial xenon products. An efficient cryogenic distillation system to remove this krypton (Kr) from commercial xenon products has been specifically designed, developed, and constructed in order to meet the requirements of the dark matter experiments with high- sensitivity and low-background. The content of krypton in regular commercial xenon products can be reduced from 10(-9) to 10(-12), with 99% xenon collection efficiency at maximum flow rate of 5 kg/h (15SLPM). The purified xenon gases produced by this distillation system can be used as the detecting media in the project of Panda X, which is the first dark matter detector developed in China.