Gravity assisted recovery of liquid xenon at large mass flow rates

We report on a liquid xenon gravity assisted recovery method for nuclear medical imaging applications. The experimental setup consists of an elevated detector enclosed in a cryostat connected to a storage tank called ReStoX. Both elements are part of XEMIS2 (XEnon Medical Imaging System): an innovative medical imaging facility for pre-clinical research that uses pure liquid xenon as detection medium. Tests based on liquid xenon transfer from the detector to ReStoX have been successfully performed showing that an unprecedented mass flow rate close to 1 ton per hour can be reached. This promising achievement as well as future areas of improvement will be discussed in this paper.