Air Liquide and the CEA pursue their partnership through the creation of a shared laboratory dedicated to cryogenics

Building on their long-term collaboration, Air Liquide and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) signed today a five-year agreement for the creation of a shared laboratory dedicated to innovation in cryogenics.

The shared laboratory will allow them to pool the complementary know-how and expertise of Air Liquide and the CEA in order to scale up new technologies more quickly. It will carry out a variety of research projects, essentially in the field of cryogenics (the analysis and production of very low temperatures) for space applications or fusion, for example.

The first projects conducted through this partnership should begin by the end of 2018, including:

• The optimization of pulse tube cryocoolers; small cryogenic coolers required to operate sensors in telescopes on Earth and in space, used for observing the universe, the Earth, or the climate.
• The creation of digital models for the dynamic simulation of large-scale cryogenic coolers used for cooling scientific equipment for research projects on fusion, in order to perfect their design and installation.

This laboratory relies on the expertise of three CEA institutes – the IRFM in Cadarache, the INAC in Grenoble, and the IRFU in Saclay – and Air Liquide's teams based in Grenoble. This initiative illustrates the long-term partnership between Air Liquide and the CEA, as well as Air Liquide's commitment to finding breakthrough technological solutions to support Deep Tech markets. It is completely in line with the Group's open innovation approach.