Driven by industry, the demand for higher purity gases seems to be never ending. It wasn’t that long ago that the packaging of UHP (Ultra High Purity, 99.999%) gases were generally reserved for a small percentage of the most sophisticated independent distributors and maybe not all branches of the major gas providers network.
Today, the enquiries for assistance with providing the proper equipment and techniques for the packaging of Research Grade (99.9999%) product are coming in at an unprecedented rate. And the demand is not just for packaging of Research Grade product, but often establishing a process to remove contaminants from a lower grade product that has specific minimum impurities to meet a customer’s process.
An additional factor, often driving end-user requirements for higher purity, is the ability of that end-user to analyse their product to improved levels of detection. For example, moisture limits of detection with a P205 cell results in parts-per-million (ppm) range results but with newer cavity ring down technology, the detection level drops to the parts-per-billion (ppb) range. This doesn’t always mean they ‘need’ the higher purity, but now may request it. This also drives the distributor to continue to upgrade their own gas analysis capability to keep up with a high-end customer’s level of detection. And this often becomes expensive.
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