Shutdown at BESSY II: new supply technology ensures long-term operation
During the shutdown, the low voltage main distribution panel will be completely renewed (here in the picture: before the conversion). © HZB/A. Knoch
The conversion work is in full swing: the old components are being dismantled and replaced. © HZB/A. Knoch
The X-ray source BESSY II is in a three-month period of shutdown. During this period, the low voltage main distribution panel in the supply building outside the electron storage ring is being renovated. This will secure the long-term operation of BESSY II over the next decade.
“The feeder cubicles for the power supply of the BESSY II machine are key to its reliable operation,” relates the responsible project manager Andreas Knoch from Technical Services (FM-T). The equipment section of the low voltage main distribution board comprises 36 control panels. They provide electricity to important components for operating the accelerator facility. These include, among other things, power supply units, magnets, high frequency systems, vacuum systems, climate control, osmosis water systems and IT systems.
“We need to replace the respective switchgear one-to-one, since there are no substitutes for the important components due to their age. The control cabinets will be equipped with components similar to the existing ones, except with adapted elements and additionally universal meters, active arc protection and new data bus technology in all outputs,” Knoch adds. Furthermore, new chillers will be installed during the shutdown. These will ensure the climate control in the electron storage ring runs reliably.
The interrelated work during the shutdown is being coordinated by Ingo Müller together with Christian Jung. The three months of “darkness” will therefore be used for other tasks as well: among others, for example, construction is continuing for the new experimental stations of the “BElChem” lab. In this joint project, the Max Planck Society and HZB are setting up new experimental capabilities at BESSY II for analysing material systems for electrochemical and catalytic applications. This work will continue even after the summer shutdown has ended.
Even if the shutdown were to continue into August, the interruption is the best alternative in which the least amount of measurement time is lost. “After all, all of our measures are aimed at one thing: that BESSY II will be available to our users stably and without unplanned interruptions,” says Christian Jung.
BESSY II will be started up again from 8 August 2022. Three weeks after that, on 30 August, HZB will once again be welcoming its users to the BESSY II beamlines.
- BESSY II: How intrinsic oxygen shortens the lifespan of solid-state batteriesAlthough solid-state batteries (SSBs) demonstrate high performance and are intrinsically safe, their capacity currently declines rapidly. A team from the TU Wien, Humboldt-University Berlin and HZB has now analysed a TiS₂|Li₃YCl₆ solid-state half-cell in operando at BESSY II using a special sample environment that allows for non-destructive investigation under real operating conditions. Data obtained by combination of soft and hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS and HAXPES) revealed a new degradation mechanism that had not previously been identified in solid-state batteries. They have gained some surprising insights, particularly regarding the harmful role played by intrinsic oxygen. This study provides valuable information for improving design and handling of such batteries.
- Spintronics at BESSY II: Real-time analysis of magnetic bilayer systemsSpintronic devices enable data processing with significantly lower energy consumption. They are based on the interaction between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic layers. Now, a team from Freie Universität Berlin, HZB and Uppsala University has succeeded in tracking, for each layer separately, how the magnetic order changes after a short laser pulse has excited the system. They were also able to identify the main cause of the loss of antiferromagnetic order in the oxide layer: the excitation is transported from the hot electrons in the ferromagnetic metal to the spins in the antiferromagnet.
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