United States helium

The principal source of helium is certain natural gas fields. The helium contents of more than 10,000 natural gases in various parts of the world have been measured (9). Helium concentrations of a few are Hsted in Table 2. In the United States, recovery of helium is economical only for helium-rich gases containing more than about 0.3 vol % belium. Most of the United States helium resources are located in the midcontinent and Rocky Mountain regions, and about 89% of the known United States supply is in the Hugoton field in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas the Keyes field in Oklahoma the Panhandle and Cliffside fields in Texas and the Riley Ridge area in Wyoming (11). 

The most important source of helium is the natural gas from certain petroleum wells in the United States and Canada. This gas may contain as much as 8 % of helium. Because helium has a lower boiling point Table 12.1) than any other gas, it is readily obtained by cooling natural gas to a temperature at which all the other gases are liquid (77 K) almost pure helium can then be pumped off. The yearly production in this way may be many millions of m of gas. but something like 10 m per year is still wasted. 

The fusion of hydrogen into helium provides the energy of the hydrogen bomb. The helium content of the atmosphere is about 1 part in 200,000. While it is present in various radioactive minerals as a decay product, the bulk of the Free World s supply is obtained from wells in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The only known helium extraction plants, outside the United States, in 1984 were in Eastern Europe (Poland), the USSR, and a few in India. 

Upon the United States entry into World War 1 in 1917, helium became a war material of first priority. Helium was sought to replace hydrogen as the lifting gas in lighter-than-air craft for military use. As a war material, helium became a government monopoly, was given a code name, and was shrouded in secrecy. By the war s end, quantities of helium had been produced, but none had reached combat. 

Helium from Natural Gas. Recovery of helium from a given natural-gas stream depends almost entirely on the total economic picture of the stream. In the United States, the lowest practical helium level that is recovered is most frequendy 0.3 vol %, although helium is frequendy ignored, and hence wasted, in streams containing somewhat high concentrations. In other parts of the wodd where political considerations sometimes interact with the economic, the use of helium concentrations lower than 0.3 vol % maybe dictated. 

Helium is extracted from natural gas in the southwestern United States and moved by a 685-km, 50-mm dia pipeline to storage in a partially depleted gas field near Amarillo, Texas, as part of the U.S. government s helium conservation program. 

Helium, the second element in the periodic table, has atomic number 2. This means its nucleus contains two protons and has a 2+ charge. The neutral atom, then, contains two electrons. There are two stable isotopes, helium-4 and helium-3, but the helium found in nature is almost pure helium-4. Helium is found in certain natural gas fields and is separated as a by-product. Sources of helium are rare and most of the world supply is produced in the United States, mainly in Texas and Kansas. 

Research in the areas of high temperature chemistry, fluorine chemistry, optical and mass spectroscopy and thermodynamics has been supported at Rice University by the United States Atomic Energy Commission, by the US. Army Research Office (Durham), by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, by the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society and by the Robert A. Welch Foundation. Liquid helium for low temperature nock was provided through arrangements with the U.S. offices of Naval Research. 

Alternatively, helium may be separated from natural gas by diffusion through permeable barriers, such as high silica glass or semipermeable membranes. The gas is supplied commercially in steel cylinders or tanks. The United States is the largest producer of helium in the world. 

Publicly, the Zeppelin Company blamed hydrogen for the explosion, but they may have had a political card to play. At that point the United States was the only country that possessed supplies of nonflammable helium gas, but the Americans were unwilling to sell it to the Germans, fearing that they d use it to construct airships for military purposes. Their worry was not unjustified, because the Germans had constructed over a... 

The composition of natural gas varies with the source, but essentially is made up of methane, ethane, propane, and other paraffinic hydrocarbons, along with small amounts of hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and. in some deposits, helium. Natural gas is found underground at various depths and pressures, as well as in solution with crude-oil deposits. Principal gas deposits are found in the United States, Canada, the former Soviet Bloc, and the Middle East. The analysis of a gas sample taken from the Panhandle natural gas field in Texas is given in Table 1. Because numerous parts of the earth do not have natural gas at all, or where supply is less than demand, much natural gas is transported, notably by pipeline in the gaseous or liquid phase and across the seas in specially-designed LNG (liquefied natural gas) earners. 

Most of the helium produced in the United States is obtained by recovering this component from helium-rich... 

The most popular carrier gases are nitrogen, helium, and hydrogen. They must be very pure, and they are chosen for their inertness since, as we have seen, their only purpose is to carry the analyte vapors through the column. Helium is the most popular in the United States because of its higher efficiency at faster flow rates, but it is expensive and in limited supply. Hydrogen is increasing in popularity, especially for OT columns. Sometimes the choice of carrier is dictated by the detector. 

Radium and other radioactive elements emit rays called alpha-rays which are just like positive rays. These rays are found to have a weight per unit charge of value 2, and to carry a positive charge 2e, so that they have atomic weight 4. The gas helium, which is used in the United States for filling balloons, has atomic weight 4, and it is found that the rays from radioactive elements are atoms of helium which have lost two electrons. An electrically neutral helium atom consists of four protons and four electrons, so an alpha-ray consists of four protons and two electrons. 

What would be the difference (if any) in the weights of two basketballs, one filled with air and one filled with helium Please give your answer in grams. Assume the standard basketball has a diameter of 9.0 in. and is filled to a pressure of 8.0 lb/in.2 Sorry for the English units, but after all basketball was invented in the United States. 

The noble gases occur as minor constituents of the atmosphere (Table 14-1). Helium is also found as a component (up to ca. 7%) in certain natural hydrocarbon gases in the United States. This helium undoubtedly originated from decay of radioactive... 

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