Published date: 14 December 2020

Closed opportunity - This means that the contract is currently closed. The buying department may be considering suppliers that have already applied, or no suitable offers were made.


Closing: 6 January 2021, 2pm

Contract summary

Industry

  • Pumps - 42122000

  • Pumps for liquids - 42122100

  • Cooling pumps - 42122160

    • Vacuum pumps - 42122450

Location of contract

South East

Value of contract

£100,000 to £500,000

Procurement reference

BIP553096456

Published date

14 December 2020

Closing date

6 January 2021

Closing time

2pm

Contract start date

18 January 2021

Contract end date

31 March 2021

Contract type

Supply contract

Procedure type

Open procedure

Any interested supplier may submit a tender in response to an opportunity notice.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

No


Description

The final date and time for submission of bids is the 06th January 2021 at 14:00

All tenders information must be submitted through the Delta eSourcing Portal

Breif description of the requirement;

The ISIS Neutron and Muon Source supports around 800 experiments per year, with almost 70% of these involving Cryogenic Sample Environment.

One of the most common ways to provide a Cryogenic Sample Environment is using a pumped helium 4 cryostat.

Such a cryostat features a liquid helium 4 bath at 4.2K. From this bath a small amount of liquid helium is drawn through to a heat exchanger, at which point a room temperature vacuum pump is used to reduce the vapour pressure above the liquid helium, giving cooling. The minimum temperature with such a system is around 1.4K.

The ability to provide such a cryogenic environment is critical to ISIS operations.

In addition, pumped helium gas is recovered by the facility and re-liquefied. In order for this process to be successful there must be no contamination of the helium gas due to the pumping process.

Currently this service is provided by scroll pumps. These are no longer suitable for this purpose due to the continuous ejection of tip-seal particulate material, the frequent maintenance required, and the noise & heat generated. They also lack the pumping capacity to deal with our more demanding equipment.

To this end we require 10 multi-stage roots design vacuum pumps which are able to pump this cold helium gas at the required rate, and which do not allow the helium to come into contact with significant contaminants (e.g. oil). The pumps should also be quiet, easily transported, and low maintenance.

For more information about this opportunity, please visit the Delta eSourcing portal at:
https://www.delta-esourcing.com/tenders/UK-GB-Didcot:-10-Multi-stage-root-pumps/89P42Q2443-0000m,m


More information

Links

Additional text

The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement.


About the buyer

Contact name

Declan Ward

Address

Polaris House
North Star Avenue
Swindon
SN2 1FL
UK

Telephone

01793444000

Email

commercial@ukri.org