As a vital, high-pressure engine of discovery, the Cryogenics and Gas Core Facility provides the expertise and specialized infrastructure – from ultra-low temperature materials to high-pressure gases – that turns complex experimental designs into operational realities. 

While the core’s team often works behind the scenes, its role in maintaining the U of A’s lab ecosystem is front and center.

“We like flying under the radar,” Francisco Dojaquez, the facility’s leadership manager said. “We’re here to support research across campus, but we do it behind the scenes and that gives us a lot of job satisfaction.”

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Cryogenic and compressed gasses include liquefied, non-liquefied or dissolved gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, helium, argon, acetylene and propane, widely used for research, welding, medical and industrial purposes.  

The core supplies tanks (known as dewars or cylinders) that hold a variety of flammable, industrial, medical grade, and cryogenic gasses to units across the university. Optical scientists using lasers, astronomers exploring the universe, pathologists studying bacteria through microscopes, biologists growing live cells or chemists using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy require such materials for their equipment or to maintain biological samples. 

Other core facilities like the Machining and Welding Center and the physicians and health care providers performing MRIs, providing oxygen to patients and using dry ice to keep tissue samples frozen also rely on the core’s services. 

The team’s deliveries don’t stop at the boundaries of campus. They deliver to local research firms as well as to dermatology offices around Tucson who need liquid nitrogen to rapidly freeze and destroy benign and precancerous skin lesions.

For clients farther afield, such as U of A-affiliated telescope installations and southern Arizona ranchers, dewars are readied for pickup at the core’s facility, where gasses are cooled to ultra-low temperatures and fed into the dewars. Telescopes need liquid nitrogen and liquid helium to cool detectors and instrumentation to reduce dark current and thermal background for optimal sensitivity. Ranchers with goats, cattle and horses use liquid nitrogen to maintain semen samples for breeding purposes.

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The core facility even supplies the dry ice for the fog machine at Centennial Hall and the helium for the blimp at the McKale Center at ALKEME Arena. 

“Researchers know what they want to accomplish, but they don’t always know what they need to accomplish it,” Dojaquez said. “They’ll often ask, ‘Will this work?’ or ‘Is this possible?’ and we’re able to help them figure out the best way forward.”

In one case, for instance, researchers working in a wind tunnel asked for a lot of high-pressure cylinders. Most cylinders are high pressure, but, as Dojaquez explained, some are even more high pressure than others. The wind tunnel experiments could only use cylinders pressurized to within a limited range. Dojaquez and his team provided the necessary guidance to make the experiments more efficient and more effective.

Whether a lab needs one pound or 500 pounds of dry ice, one liter or 1,000 liters of liquid helium, nitrogen or argon, Dojaquez’s team delivers orders of all sizes. The facility also sells, rents, installs and repairs cryogenic and gas equipment. 

“Our team is trained on all the equipment and regularly repairs things like regulators and valves or walks researchers through the process of making quick fixes to the equipment themselves,” Dojaquez said. “And our team is up, running the forklift, loading the trucks and making deliveries every day before most people have had their first cup of coffee.”