Zhongke Qingneng Completes Development of China's First Ultra-Large Helium Refrigerator

Recently, Henan Zhongke Qingneng Technology Co., Ltd., in collaboration with the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, successfully held in Hefei the development summary meeting for the 20kW@4.5K ultra-large helium refrigerator, marking that this first domestically produced ultra-large equipment has officially passed expert panel review and is ready for rollout and delivery.

Helium refrigerators are indispensable core cryogenic equipment for frontier large-scale scientific facilities such as magnetic confinement controlled nuclear fusion devices. For a long time, key core technologies such as 20kW ultra-large cooling capacity equipment in the 4.5K temperature range and high-power cryogenic turbo-expanders have been monopolized by a few leading international enterprises such as France's Air Liquide and Germany's Linde Group. This joint R&D team successfully broke through a series of bottleneck technologies, including high-power deep cryogenic refrigeration processes, cold box integration, and independent development of key rotating components, achieving full localization of the complete unit and key parts, with the procurement cost per unit significantly lower than that of imported comparable products.

The successful development of this equipment has enabled China to achieve a historic transformation from "following" to "running abreast" in the field of core equipment for fusion reactor cryogenic systems, providing an independently controllable "cryogenic heart" for strategic emerging industries prioritized in China's 15th Five-Year Plan, such as controlled nuclear fusion energy, large superconducting accelerators, large-scale quantum infrastructure, and deep space exploration. Project leader Lu Xiaofei pointed out that this is a major leap from quantitative accumulation to qualitative transformation in China's deep cryogenic systems engineering.

Pan Weiwei, General Manager of Zhongke Qingneng, stated that since its establishment, the company has built a diversified product family covering all temperature ranges. In the future, the company will continue to increase R&D investment, accelerate the construction of a full-chain ecosystem covering R&D, manufacturing, and operations, fully serve national strategic emerging industries and future industries, and provide strong technical support for China to seize the competitive high ground in high-tech industries.