Deep Talks: Making and installing the world?s purest copper

Building the Majorana Demonstrator requires using the world’s purest copper. But copper that pure can’t be purchased in a store or ordered online. It has to be produced and installed deep underground. You can learn all about how that happens at the next Deep Talks presentation, Thursday, March 10, at the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center, 160 W. Main, Lead, S.D. The event begins at 5 p.m. with a social hour; the talk begins at 6 p.m.

In the presentation, "Nuggets, acids, and plates: The underground production and installation of the purest copper in the world,” Vince Guiseppe, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, and Cabot-Ann Christofferson, Majorana liaison to Sanford Lab and a chemistry instructor at South Dakota School of Mines, will discuss the production, processing and installation of electro-formed copper.

Collaborators with the Majorana Demonstrator project hope to find a rare form of radioactive decay. Essentially, they want to find out if the neutrino is its own antiparticle, or Majorana particle. The detection of this elusive particle could help explain why matter—planets, stars, humans and everything else in the universe—exists. 

Deep Talks, which is sponsored by Sanford Lab and the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center, is free to the public. Donations to support education events at the Visitor Center are welcome. Light refreshments will be served; guests aged 21 and older may sample craft brews from Crow Peak Brewery

Sanford Lab is operated by the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority (SDSTA) with funding from the Department of Energy. Our mission is to advance compelling underground, multidisciplinary research in a safe work environment and to inspire and educate through science, technology, and engineering. Visit Sanford Lab at www.SanfordLab.org.

Visit Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center at  http://sanfordlabhomestake.com