can helium gas be manufactured？
Yes, there are currently four preparation methods
Condensation method: Condensation method is used in industry to extract helium from natural gas. The process of this method includes pretreatment and purification of natural gas, production of crude helium and refining of helium to obtain 99.99% pure helium.
Air separation method: Generally, the fractional condensation method is used to extract the crude helium and neon mixed gas from the air device, and the pure helium and neon mixed gas is produced from the crude helium and neon mixed gas. After separation and purification, 99.99% pure helium is obtained.
Hydrogen liquefaction method: In industry, hydrogen liquefaction method is used to extract helium from the tail gas of ammonia synthesis. The process of this method is low-temperature adsorption to remove nitrogen, rectification to obtain crude helium plus oxygen catalytic hydrogen removal and helium purification to obtain 99.99% pure helium.
High-purity helium method: 99.99% pure helium is further purified by activated carbon adsorption to obtain 99.9999% high-purity helium.
First of all, in terms of resource reserves and quality, although there is helium in our basin, the content found so far is still too small compared with the world, only 11×10^8 cubic meters, accounting for about 2.1% of the global total . In contrast, the consumption of helium in my country has an average growth rate of 11% from 2014 to 2018. It can be seen that China's helium reserves are not enough to support huge consumption. Even if it is developed, most of it still needs to rely on imports. Moreover, the quality of the currently explored helium is relatively poor, not reaching the commercial level, and even if it is mined, it cannot be used. The second is the issue of development equipment and efficiency, from the perspective of natural gas helium extraction equipment. There are very few helium extraction devices in my country, such as Dongxingchang Town, Rongxian County, Sichuan Province. This device was rebuilt in 2011 and is responsible for the purification of helium. The purity of crude helium produced is about 80%. Then the crude helium needs to be transported to Chengdu Natural Gas Chemical Plant for further purification, with an annual output of 20×10^4 cubic meters of pure helium. Therefore, the equipment and purification efficiency also make it difficult for us to produce helium by ourselves, so we can only rely on imports.
It is not an infinite supply of resources. Currently, the global demand for helium is increasing rapidly, but its supply is very limited. This means we need to use this precious element more carefully and find alternatives to meet our growing needs.
Because hydrogen and helium are both very light gases. Helium is an inert gas, but hydrogen is very active, flammable and explosive. Hydrogen airships were eliminated for safety reasons.
Yes, the current Helium III is obtained by the decay of tritium. It's just that tritium is now obtained by irradiating lithium VI in a nuclear fission reactor.
