Helium
Helium’s exceptional properties make it indispensable across various high-tech and medical industries, including aerospace, electronics, telecommunications, and healthcare. Its ability to remain in a liquid state at extremely low temperatures is critical for cooling superconducting magnets in MRI machines and other advanced applications. Additionally, due to its inert nature, helium plays a key role in manufacturing semiconductors, optical fibers, and aerospace components.
The demand for helium is set to double over the next decade. This surge in usage is largely due to the increased demand for semiconductors in the age of AI and quantum computing. Helium’s use in other advanced fields such as aerospace and healthcare will also be a driver of its demand in the coming years.
Why Choose us
- Production
- Processing
- Liquification
Purity Grades
The uses of helium, and ultimately its value, is directly related to the purity to which its processed.
- Grade 6 – Closest to 100% pure helium, used in semiconductor chip manufacturing, lab research, MRIs and other technical fields.
- Grade 5 – Considered research grade and the first stage to be liquified. Used in cooling fiber optics, chromatography, MRIs, and laboratory research.
- Grade 4.5-4.8 – Commonly referred to as industrial grade. Many military uses, shielding gas in welding, and blimps.
- Grade 4 – Considered balloon grade and largely used for filling balloons, airbags and heat transfer applications.
Production
Processing
Liquification
Helium is the second most abundant gas in the universe, and plentiful in space. However, the gas we can extract on Earth is limited. Helium is produced naturally through the radioactive decomposition and decay of certain elements and is trapped in underground reservoirs. The entrapped gas mixes with natural gas and can be found under layers beneath Earth’s surface.
Historically produced as a by-product of hydrocarbon production, these mixed reservoirs make up the bulk of the world’s helium supply. Helium is also found in clean, non-hydrocarbon based reservoirs mixed with various industrial gasses like nitrogen and carbon oxide. The process of extracting helium is identical to drilling for hydrocarbons, using the same equipment, tools and personnel in the operations.
Once extracted, the helium gas is gathered in a centralized processing facility to be purified and sold as a gas or liquid. The gaseous purification process is done through membrane separation or pressure-swing adsorption (PSA). While cryogenic processing is utilized for liquification.
