Helium in waters

Bata obtaaned by Estreicher (Zeitsch. physihd. Chem., 1899, 31, 176) and corrected by Antropoff Cady, Elsey, and Berger (J. Amer. Ohm. Soc., 1922, 44, 1456) give the solubility of helium in water betweenJl0 and 30° C., but find no minimum value. 

Dyck, W., 1979a. Uranium, radon and helium in waters of the Key Lake area, Saskatchewan. Preprint of talk presented at the Annual Meeting of Can. Inst. Min. Metall., Montreal. 

Figure 11.1-3 The solubility of several gases in liquids as a function of temperature. The solubility is expressed as mole fraction of the gas in the liquid at a gas partial pressure of 0.01 bar. Curve 1 Helium in water. Curve 2 Oxygen in water. Curve 3 Carbon dioxide in water. Curve 4 Bromine in water. Curve 5 Methane in n-heptane.

Use atomic properties to explain why xenon is more than 25 times as soluble as helium in water at 0°C. 

Table 2 quantitatively describes how the noble gases partition between the three phases when a system containing these three phases is in equilibrium in fresh water at 0°C. The numbers represent the amount of the gas found in one phase relative to the other. For example, the first row describes the amount of each gas that would reside in the gaseous bubble phase relative to the liquid phase thus for helium, there would be 106.8 times more helium present in the bubble than in the water. This illustrates the small solubility of helium in water and its strong affinity for the gas phase. Because helium is 1.9 times more soluble in ice than in water, helium partitions less strongly between the bubble and ice phases compared to the partition between the bubble and water phases. The two numbers shown for neon represent the two different estimates for the solubility of neon in the ice phase. One estimate suggests that neon is less soluble in ice than in water, whereas the other suggests that it is more soluble in ice. 

Divers avoid the bends by returning to the surface slowly, taking short decompression stops at intermediate depths to allow excess gas to escape from their blood without forming bubbles. Another way divers reduce the risk of the bends is by using helium-oxygen gas mixtures instead of compressed air. Helium is only half as soluble in water as nitrogen is, so less gas dissolves in blood. 

Figure 1. In Situ MOssbauer Spectra. A) Spectrum collected while the sample (sample 1) was at room temperature In flowing helium gas. The sample had been previously treated for 3 hours In water-gas shift synthesis gas at 613 K B) Spectrum collected while the sample was at 613 K In flowing water-gas shift synthesis gas C) Spectrum collected while the sample was at room temperature In flowing helium gas. The sample had been previously treated for 25 hours In water-gas shift synthesis gas at 613 K D) Spectrum collected at room temperature In flowing helium gas. The sample had been previously treated for 65 hours In flowing water-gas shift synthesis gas at 613 K.

Fig. 14.14 The effect of ethanol concentration on the relative SL intensity in argon and helium saturated water normalised with respect to pure water) at 363 kHz [60]...

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