tim's journal

The magic of helium

The next time you see a balloon pumped up with helium, think about this: helium is a rare, non-renewable resource. Helium can be and is produced by fusion inside stars like the Sun. While it is the second most abundant element in the universe, it was not discovered in earth until 1895 by Sir William Ramsay. It has a suprisingly nuclear source. It was found in a mineral containing uranium called clevite. Helium comes from alpha decay, radioactive decay which produces alpha particles - each with two neutrons and two protons. Of course, this is simply doubly ionized helium. Helium is present in the earth's atmosphere at 0.0005%. It is not feasible to extract helium from air. The primary source commercially are natural gas deposits in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Liquified helium is critical in a variety of scientific and medical instrumentation, e.g., fiberoptic cooling, magnetic resonance imaging, and, most recently, whistling superfluid gyroscopes [2].

What's so special about helium [3]?

• Helium is the second lightest element.
• It is chemically inert, having essentially no tendency to combine with other elements.
• It has the highest ionization potential (24.587 eV).
• The boiling point of helium is closer to absolute zero than that of any other element, so liquid helium can provide the lowest operating temperatures of any refrigerant.
• Helium remains liquid at atmospheric pressure down to absolute zero and can be solidified only by applying 25 atm. In its solid form, helium is extremely compressible, permitting volume changes of more than 30 percent.
• Liquid 4He undergoes a transition to a superfluid phase at temperatures below 2.18 K (-455.5 °F) and has extraordinary physical properties, including viscosity-free fluid flow and extraordinarily high thermal conductivity (on the order of a million times greater than its conductivity in the normal phase and greater than that of the best metallic conductors).
• The specific heat and thermal conductivity of helium gas are very high.
• Helium is radiologically inert (i.e., it does not easily participate in nuclear processes and does not become radioactive).

Did you know that the rarity of helium prompted the United States to setup a Federal Helium Reserve? In 1996, per the Helium Privatization Act, Congress directed the Bureau of Land Management to stop producing helium and to sell the government's stockpile by 2005 [4]. An exhaustive report [3] is available for free, thanks to your tax dollars and mine.

As of January 2003, the USGS is aware 8.5 billion cubic meters of helium in the United States: 0.87 billion cubic meter at the Cliffside Field Government Reserve, 3.7 billion in helium-rich natural gas, and 3.1 billion in helium lean natural gas. Outside the United States, the estimate is 31.4 billion cubic meters broken down into Qatar, 10; Algeria, 8; Russia, 7; Canada, 2; China, 1; and Poland, 0.3 [5].

Now that's facinating. How come Qatar has so much helium? Qatar Liquified Gas Company issued a press release on helium production not too long ago:

Qatar will become one of the world's leading helium producers by 2010, with the launch of a $115m helium joint venture plant. It will be located at the Ras Laffan Industrial City, with Qatargas, RasGas and RasGas II supplying the helium. The contract for the design and construction of the plant was awarded to the French company Air Liquide Engineering SA on 21st May, 2003. The Minister of Energy and Chairman of Qatargas, HE Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah signed on behalf of Qatargas and Dr. Ibrahim Al Ibrahim, Vice Chairman on behalf of RasGas.

The plant owners have also concluded two separate long-term agreements with BOC Group Inc. and Air Liquide America LP for the installation of facilities required to extract helium from natural gas, purify and liquefy it for export.

The plant will be constructed over the next two years and have an annual production of 650 million standard cubic feet of helium. The first helium sale is expected in July 2005.

"This is just phase I. We hope to double production as we plan to be the world's top helium producer", said HE Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah. Currently, only a few countries produce helium including the US, Algeria and Australia. The US alone produces and consumes 60% of the world market share of helium. There are only 12 helium plants in the world today. One plant is currently under construction in Algeria and Ras Laffan will become the world's 14th helium plant.

Helium is colourless, odourless, non-reactive, safer and lighter than air. It is require for a number of commercial and industrial applications. It is the second most abundant element in the universe, but rarely found in concentrations that justify economic extraction. Due to its marginal presence in natural gas, extracting it for liquefaction is complicated, which makes it an expensive product. However, Qatargas' North Field, with its massive natural gas reserves, makes extraction economically viable. The key markets for Qatari helium on completion of the project include the Middle East and Asia. It is estimated that Qatar will account for about 15% of the world's helium market.

References
[1] S. Gagnon, It's Elemental, Jefferson Lab.
[2] T. Malik, Whistling Helium: Supercold Sound May Lead to Better GPS in Submarines, 16 Feb 2005.
[3] The Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve, Board on Physics and Astronomy (BPA), National Materials Advisory Board (NMAB), 2000.
[4] Selling Federal Helium Reserves Should Not Adversely Affect Industry, Research Activities, National Academy of Sciences, 23 May 2000.
[5] Helium, USGS, Jan 2005.