Throughout this year gasworld has covered ‘Helium Shortage 3.0’ with reports of price increases of up to 100%. Such price volatility is a real incentive to search for sustainable alternatives!
For some helium applications, such as leak testing and as a chromatography carrier gas, hydrogen can be used as a substitute for helium. Unlike helium, which is a finite resource on Earth linked to natural gas reserves, hydrogen can be produced from water and is therefore a sustainable option for future decades.
For some other applications, such as superconducting magnets in hospital MRI scanners, helium is hard to substitute because no other gas has the right mix of physical properties. There are many examples where sustainable alternative products have been found and a few applications where the hunt is still in progress. In many cases, process gases are leading the way to sustainable solutions.
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