Xenon and krypton rare gases, with a concentration of less than one millionth in the air. A 40 liter bottle of xenon gas is more expensive than a small car and can be called "gas gold".
How to extract rare gases
According to the introduction, rare gases mainly include helium, neon, argon, krypton, and xenon, accounting for 0.94% of the air volume. Most of them are argon, with very little content of other gases, such as xenon, which has a content of only 0.08 parts per million.
Rare gases have a wide range of uses and emit light of different colors when powered on. They are widely used for lighting, such as xenon gas in car headlights and neon gas in traffic lights. It can also be used in cutting-edge fields such as aerospace plasma engines, lasers, low-temperature superconductivity, and nuclear industry.
How is rare gas extracted from such a scarce amount of "gas gold"?
According to the introduction, the principle is actually very simple, mainly utilizing the different boiling points of different gases. By pressurizing through an air compressor, utilizing the characteristics of gas expansion refrigeration and throttling refrigeration, the temperature is reduced to between minus 172 ℃ and minus 192 ℃, making the air liquid. Then, it is repeatedly condensed and evaporated, and different components are separated at different temperature ranges. For example, when the temperature drops to around -182 ℃, oxygen changes from a gaseous state to a liquid state and is separated from the liquid air. Gases such as krypton and xenon are generally present in liquid oxygen and require further cryogenic distillation separation.
At present, only a few gas companies in China have the ability to prepare rare gases with low production. Rare gases have always been popular in the market, and Newritte Gas has operations in xenon, neon, argon, krypton, and various types of neon gas mixtures (such as neon argon mixture, neon nitrogen mixture, and neon helium mixture used in laser, laser, lighting industries, etc.).