The effect of magnetic fields on water is still a highly controversial topic despite the vast amount of research devoted to this topic in past decades. Enhanced water evaporation in a magnetic field, however, is less disputed. The underlying mechanism for this phenomenon has been investigated in previous studies. In this paper, we present an investigation of the evaporation of water in a large gradient magnetic field. The evaporation of pure water at simulated gravity positions (0 gravity level (ab. g), 1 g, 1.56 g and 1.96 g) in a superconducting magnet was compared with that in the absence of the magnetic field. The results showed that the evaporation of water was indeed faster in the magnetic field than in the absence of the magnetic field. Furthermore, the amount of water evaporation differed depending on the position of the sample within the magnetic field. In particular, the evaporation at 0 g was clearly faster than that at other positions. The results are discussed from the point of view of the evaporation surface area of the water/air interface and the convection induced by the magnetization force due to the difference in the magnetic susceptibility of water vapor and the surrounding air.

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/13/12/16916/pdf

Evaporation Rate of Water as a Function of a Magnetic Field and Field Gradient

All matter has density. The recorded uses of density to characterize matter date back to as early as ca. 250 BC, when Archimedes was believed to have solved "The Puzzle of The King's Crown" using density.[1] Today, measurements of density are used to separate and characterize a range of materials (including cells and organisms), and their chemical and/or physical changes in time and space. This Review describes a density-based technique-magnetic levitation (which we call "MagLev" for simplicity)-developed and used to solve problems in the fields of chemistry, materials science, and biochemistry. MagLev has two principal characteristics-simplicity, and applicability to a wide range of materials-that make it useful for a number of applications (for example, characterization of materials, quality control of manufactured plastic parts, self-assembly of objects in 3D, separation of different types of biological cells, and bioanalyses). Its simplicity and breadth of applications also enable its use in low-resource settings (for example-in economically developing regions-in evaluating water/food quality, and in diagnosing disease).

Magnetic Levitation in Chemistry, Materials Science, and Biochemistry.

Finite-size scaling of He 4 at the superfluid transition

Spaceflight and ground-based microgravity analog experiments have suggested that microgravity can affect microbial growth and metabolism. Although the effects of microgravity and its analogs on microorganisms have been studied for more than 50 years, plausible conflicting and diverse results have frequently been reported in different experiments, especially regarding microbial growth and secondary metabolism. Until now, only the responses of a few typical microbes to microgravity have been investigated; systematic studies of the genetic and phenotypic responses of these microorganisms to microgravity in space are still insufficient due to technological and logistical hurdles. The use of different test strains and secondary metabolites in these studies appears to have caused diverse and conflicting results. Moreover, subtle changes in the extracellular microenvironments around microbial cells play a key role in the diverse responses of microbial growth and secondary metabolisms. Therefore, “indirect” effects represent a reasonable pathway to explain the occurrence of these phenomena in microorganisms. This review summarizes current knowledge on the changes in microbial growth and secondary metabolism in response to spaceflight and its analogs and discusses the diverse and conflicting results. In addition, recommendations are given for future studies on the effects of microgravity in space on microbial growth and secondary metabolism.

/pdf/effects-of-spaceflight-and-simulated-microgravity-on-4hkdcuv48z.pdf

Effects of spaceflight and simulated microgravity on microbial growth and secondary metabolism

Magnetic levitation of large water droplets and mice

We report on our latest measurements of gravity cancellation in the low-gravity simulator using a magnetostrictive force. We made these measurements using a new thermal conductivity cell design that is 0.5cm in diameter and 0.5cm in height. Gravity cancellation was verified by measuring both the reduction in the Tλvariation across the cell and the suppression of thermal convection as a function of the magnetic field. Full gravity cancellation was achieved in the simulator with B(dB/dz) ≈ 21 T2/cm, agreeing well with the calculated value and the valve found from levitating drops of helium.

4he experiments near tlambda in a low-gravity simulator

Cryogenics for lunar exploration

http://www.nls.physics.ucsb.edu/papers/GMALL05_ASR.pdf

Scaling and universality of the thermal conductivity of liquid 4He near the superfluid transition and in restricted geometries

We review the opportunities for microgravity measurements of the thermal resistivity R(L,t) near the bulk superfluid-transition line Tλ(P) of 4He confined in cylindrical geometries with axial heat flow. A scaling function is used to estimate R as a function of the cylinder radius L and of the pressure P. These predictions are used to assess the effect of gravity on potential Earth-based measurements. Radii L≳8 μm can only be investigated fully in micro-gravity. At higher pressures the gravity effect is larger. At 30 bar samples with L≳4 μm require microgravity. Modern thermometry has sufficient resolution to permit quantitative measurements of the finite-size effect for L as large as 50 μm, the size chosen for the proposed ISS experiment BEST.

Yuanming Liu

Papers

Magnetic levitation of large water droplets and mice

4he experiments near tlambda in a low-gravity simulator

Cryogenics for lunar exploration

Scaling and universality of the thermal conductivity of liquid 4He near the superfluid transition and in restricted geometries

Boundary effects near the superfluid transition (BEST), an experiment proposed for the ISS