# When will the Argon shortage end?



## erikmannie (Aug 23, 2022)

Posted on 8/23/22:

I just went to refill my spare cylinder of Argon, and I was *very* lucky to buy their last one in that size. It cost me $65. I am in the Bay Area, California, and the company is Matheson Gas.

They said to make it last because I will not be able to find any Argon in this area until such time that we get past the Argon shortage.

This also applies to C25, as that is 75% Argon.

Matheson Gas has existing contract customers, and they try to fill those contracts. They are not accepting any new contract customers, at least not for these shielding gases.

They have plenty of acetylene and oxygen. 

The supply of CO2 is also a little tight, but there is not a critical shortage as with Argon and C25.

Does anybody know anything about when this shortage might end?

I will reserve my Argon on hand for only aluminum and titanium jobs, and only MIG (I use C25) when I can’t use gas or stick on that job. I wonder if I will end up trying 100% CO2 for MIG.

Many people have said that gas welding is dead or dying. I don’t know what else I would use on thin steel if I can’t TIG or MIG. I won’t use a 1/16” stick electrode on anything thinner than 1/16”.


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## RJSakowski (Aug 23, 2022)

Argon is .9% of the atmosphere do there's plenty of raw material around.  As for CO2, well they're frantically trying to get rid of it.  Argon is  produced by liquefying air and distilling off the argon.  CO2 is a byproduct of power plant operation and ethanol fuel production and it is a mystery as to why it should be in short supply.


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## MrWhoopee (Aug 23, 2022)

My SIL works at an ethanol plant. They are making big bucks from the sale of CO2. Hard to imagine there is anything other than an artificial shortage. Haven't priced argon recently, but I found it cost half as much 90 miles from home instead of 45. I also found that going directly to the producer (Airgas) does not get you a better price. It cost more to buy direct than from a distributor. It pays to shop welding gasses.


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## G-ManBart (Aug 23, 2022)

First I've heard of it.  I posted a similar question on a welding forum to see if others have heard of anything along these lines.  I've got spare 330 CuFt bottles of everything I use so I'm not overly worried, but it would be good to know so I can plan ahead.


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## NCjeeper (Aug 23, 2022)

G-ManBart said:


> First I've heard of it.


Same here. Not an issue around here that I know of.


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## great white (Aug 23, 2022)

Might be something local. I have no problems getting replacement bottles (Albe) from the LWS....


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## benmychree (Aug 23, 2022)

erikmannie said:


> Posted on 8/23/22:
> 
> I just went to refill my spare cylinder of Argon, and I was *very* lucky to buy their last one in that size. It cost me $65. I am in the Bay Area, California, and the company is Matheson Gas.
> 
> ...


I used straight CO2 for many years on steel, it gives the best penetration of all gasses, buy the welds are not as pretty as with 75/25.  When I worked at Kaiser Steel, they made all the tunnel liners for BART rapid transit, most of the welding on them was done with MIG with CO2, except with the skin plate to the side flanges, which was done with sub arc, with the MIG welds, they were done with a machined weld prep for (nearly) full penetration.


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## erikmannie (Aug 23, 2022)

I should have called the other 2 suppliers in town before I posted this thread. I just called both of them, and neither one are having an issue with this. At this point, it looks like the issue was localized to Matheson, or even that one Matheson store!

Praxair said that they make their own at a plant in Pittsburgh, California. Praxair charges $65 for an exchange which is the same that I paid at Matheson this morning.

I called Airgas, & they charge $200 to exchange an empty customer owned cylinder for a fully charged cylinder of Argon. To their credit, they have it in stock. I thought he had misquoted me the price, but this is actually the price for the same thing that the other 2 suppliers in town charge $65.

Now I feel comfortable TIG welding if I want to.


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## great white (Aug 23, 2022)

erikmannie said:


> Many people have said that gas welding is dead or dying. I don’t know what else I would use on thin steel if I can’t TIG or MIG. I won’t use a 1/16” stick electrode on anything thinner than 1/16”.


Can't see gas welding "going away" anytime in the near future. Sure, there's plasma welding, electron beam welding, laser welding, friction welding, etc. But they're all quite expensive, require very specific equipment or are not really that portable.

Plus, I can't see the thousands/millions of little welding shops all around North America throwing out their portable gas units (that are most likely paid for) and either paying a lot of money for a portable new welding system or trying to make all their customers come to their shop.

Kinda hard to bring a busted 20 ton excavator to the LWS if you can't even move it.....


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## OCJohn (Aug 23, 2022)

Interesting topic. I know nothing about it, but found this after a little reading...









						US CO2 shortage: More plant closures set to impact supply in the coming weeks
					

“I believe this is going to be a challenging summer/fall. CO2 demand continues to outpace the capacity being added and the current outages are only adding to that stress,” that’s what Ned Lane, CEO of CK...




					www.gasworld.com
				






> *Ammonia plant closures due to scheduled maintenance occurs every year after the fertilizer season, so it is well known to the industry for planning purposes,”* according to Maura Garvey, Principal, Intelligas Consulting. “The challenges surrounding the Denbury source have just made the logistics planning significantly more difficult. Since this issue is an annual occurrence, the industry and end users should be developing a longer-term plan to create a fly-wheel for the peak summer months.”
> 
> *Ammonia production is a key sourcing route for CO2 production. In fact, ammonia plants have traditionally been one a large source of food-grade CO2* and while in the past decade other sources of CO2 have been invested in, including those raw gas streams from chemical operations and bioethanol plants, ammonia remains one of the largest sources.



Related and potentially devastating concern: 

Shortage of CO2 could threaten nation’s beer supply​


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## RJSakowski (Aug 23, 2022)

OCJohn said:


> Interesting topic. I know nothing about it, but found this after a little reading...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I posted this,  https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/not-the-beer.83748/, at the beginning of the pandemic when everybody was in lockdown and the ethanol fuel industry was shutting down due to a lockdown caused reduction in vehicular traffic.  I had hoped we were past that.


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## Winegrower (Aug 23, 2022)

erikmannie said:


> I called Airgas, & they charge $200 to exchange an empty customer owned cylinder for a fully charged cylinder of Argon.


Several years ago I took Airgas off my personal list of approved vendors.


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## graham-xrf (Aug 23, 2022)

OCJohn said:


> Related and potentially devastating concern:
> Shortage of CO2 could threaten nation’s beer supply​


Unfortunately, I could not access the link (apparently unavailable to European Economic Area because of "data protection laws").

BUT..
Re: CO2 shortage and beer - why?
Beer makes it's own CO2, lots of it, including the sparkle from the second fermentation after clearing that gives the beer it's head.


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## WobblyHand (Aug 23, 2022)

Clearly the big brewers aren't doing it the traditional way any more, hence the need for CO2.  The only CO2 I ever used was the byproduct of fermentation.


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## G-ManBart (Aug 23, 2022)

graham-xrf said:


> Unfortunately, I could not access the link (apparently unavailable to European Economic Area because of "data protection laws").
> 
> BUT..
> Re: CO2 shortage and beer - why?
> Beer makes it's own CO2, lots of it, including the sparkle from the second fermentation after clearing that gives the beer it's head.


I was pretty good friends with the owner of the LWS and she told me the majority of her C02 sales were to cannabis grow operations.  She claimed the "pot heads" were a real pain to deal with...lol


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## twraska (Aug 23, 2022)

erikmannie said:


> Posted on 8/23/22:
> 
> I just went to refill my spare cylinder of Argon, and I was *very* lucky to buy their last one in that size. It cost me $65. I am in the Bay Area, California, and the company is Matheson Gas.
> 
> ...


CO2 is tight, yet the greenies are wanting to build pipelines to pump it back in the ground! Only in America.


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## graham-xrf (Aug 24, 2022)

twraska said:


> CO2 is tight, yet the greenies are wanting to build pipelines to pump it back in the ground! Only in America.


Not that I like their image, but the greenies only align with what is a manifest truth well known to others of a more scientific nature. If "CO2 is tight", then it is an artificial marketing or supply situation, possibly confined only to the OP supplier.

Now also, if not plain to all, is that we want our CO2 in handy safe cylinders at pressure, so we can expend it shielding our arcs, before it makes it's way into the atmosphere. The tonnage of by-product that takes the direct route out of every kind of heat engine and fuel burning process is never available to "alleviate  a shortage" via a spell in a cylinder. It goes straight up the power station flue, or out of the twin exhausts on the big truck.

Some "greenie" philosophy notions are apocalyptic - and disagreeably nuts with it, but pumping CO2 back into the ground is not a trick they invented, even if they jumped on it. Also, I do not think it is an outlandish scheme.

I am a occasional low consumption argon user, so I don't find myself in need of planning to avoid shortages, but it occurs to me that the the very compression process to extract the argon, itself also puts CO2 into the atmosphere.


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## twraska (Aug 24, 2022)

graham-xrf said:


> Not that I like their image, but the greenies only align with what is a manifest truth well known to others of a more scientific nature. If "CO2 is tight", then it is an artificial marketing or supply situation, possibly confined only to the OP supplier.
> 
> Now also, if not plain to all, is that we want our CO2 in handy safe cylinders at pressure, so we can expend it shielding our arcs, before it makes it's way into the atmosphere. The tonnage of by-product that takes the direct route out of every kind of heat engine and fuel burning process is never available to "alleviate  a shortage" via a spell in a cylinder. It goes straight up the power station flue, or out of the twin exhausts on the big truck.
> 
> ...


But, as a farmer, my plants need CO2, and,,,, if you think back to Jr high science class, my plants convert it to sugar and O2.  The greater the CO2 concentration the faster they grow and therefore convert more to O2.


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## Provincial (Aug 24, 2022)

Since burning hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) requires two atoms of oxygen for each atom of hydrogen or carbon, why are we not seeing a reduction in atmospheric oxygen?  I think there is more activity from plants than is being recognized.  Much of this is likely happening in the oceans.


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## jmkasunich (Aug 24, 2022)

Provincial said:


> Since burning hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) requires two atoms of oxygen for each atom of hydrogen or carbon, why are we not seeing a reduction in atmospheric oxygen?  I think there is more activity from plants than is being recognized.  Much of this is likely happening in the oceans.


I suspect that the oxygen is going down to match the CO2 going up.  But it's a matter of relative numbers vs absolute numbers.  In 1960, the CO2 content in the atmosphere was about 0.031%.  In 2020 it was about 0.041%.  In comparison, oxygen makes up about 21% of the atmosphere.  If every CO2 molecule added to the atmosphere was created by taking away an oxygen molecule, then the oxygen content would go down from 21.00% to 20.99%.  That tiny change in oxygen content is unnoticeable.  But CO2 increasing from 0.031 to 0.041 is a 33% relative increase in CO2 over 60 years.  A little CO2 has a big effect.


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## cjtoombs (Aug 24, 2022)

While it was pointed out earlier that Argon makes up about 1% of the atmosphere and that it was derived from distillation of air so there shouldn't be a shortage, that may not be entirely correct.  Argon is not a primary component of the process, just a byproduct, so if demand, and thus production, of oxygen and/or nitrogen are down, there will be less argon.  It's not economical to liquify and distill air just for the argon (unless you're willing to pay thousands for a bottle).  Remember, there will be 79 bottles of nitrogen and 21 bottles of oxygen produced for every bottle of argon.


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## WobblyHand (Aug 24, 2022)

Off beat question, any know of plans to build one's own air compressor for liquifying air?


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## pontiac428 (Aug 24, 2022)

WobblyHand said:


> Off beat question, any know of plans to build one's own air compressor for liquifying air?


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## rwm (Aug 24, 2022)

Yes. You will need a scuba compressor and a countercurrent heat exchanger. 









						Homemade Liquid Nitrogen Generator
					

Homemade Liquid Nitrogen Generator: Did you ever think you could make liquid nitrogen in your own garage? This is an industrial process so how can an individual do this? Still doubt me? Intrigued? Read on. As a lover of science I tried to think of a challenging project that was out of…




					www.instructables.com


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## WobblyHand (Aug 24, 2022)

rwm said:


> Yes. You will need a scuba compressor and a countercurrent heat exchanger.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


How to make the scuba compressor?  That's the expensive item.  The rest is straight forward.


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## WobblyHand (Aug 24, 2022)

pontiac428 said:


>


Been there, done that


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## graham-xrf (Aug 24, 2022)

twraska said:


> But, as a farmer, my plants need CO2, and,,,, if you think back to Jr high science class, my plants convert it to sugar and O2.  The greater the CO2 concentration the faster they grow and therefore convert more to O2.


Indeed it is so.
I was asking how come there came to be so much oil in a desert wasteland (Saudi Arabia), and under the North Sea.
Sure, now in a few decades, we are burning off  the plant hydrocarbons accumulated by millions of years of sun energy making plants

I understand there was a time when the atmosphere was so thick with CO2, that is what gave the boost to the plant growth all over the planet. Unfortunately, we don't get to repeat the trick, although I dare say planting trees and fields and reclaiming desert, and not stripping out the Amazon might help. It had stabilized at about 0.4%, before the industrial revolution in mid 1800s.

*Ultra bonkers greenhouse warming!*
The most extreme case of planet warming has to be Venus atmosphere (96% CO2). At about 80 miles above the surface, its very cold (about -279°F ) Get closer to the surface to 60 miles, and it gets warmer. It's about 14°F at the top of the thick deck of CO2 cloud at about 60 miles.
Below the cloud, at the surface, it's hot enough to melt lead or zinc (464°F)

I guess the point may be that it can get so bad that plant life can't survive do the rescue job


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## rwm (Aug 25, 2022)

Not too expensive really:








						381.42US $ 22% OFF|Tuxing 4500psi 300bar 30mpa Pcp Air Compressor High Pressure Pump Pneumatic Rifle Filling Gas Cylinder Tank Scuba Set Pressure - Pumps - AliExpress
					

Smarter Shopping, Better Living!  Aliexpress.com




					www.aliexpress.com


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## WobblyHand (Aug 25, 2022)

rwm said:


> Not too expensive really:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've seen compressors like this before, but they have no scfm rating which indicates to me that they are probably very low.  The total price is about double - did you notice the shipping cost?  Also would want "breathable" version since we don't want oil and other blowby in the liquid air.  Scuba compressors are pretty expensive, was wondering if it was possible to make one.  Might be more expensive than buying, though...


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## great white (Aug 25, 2022)

graham-xrf said:


> Indeed it is so.
> I was asking how come there came to be so much oil in a desert wasteland (Saudi Arabia), and under the North Sea.


Mostly because of this:






That's a map of the supercontinent Pangea. It came to be roughly 335 million years ago and started breaking up approx 200 million years ago. That means the current oil rich areas had approx 135 million years to produce vegetation to produce oil, and rouhly 200 million years to change that plant material into hydrocarbons.

Saudi used to be in the equatorial tropical region which means it woudl have experienced thick vegetation coverage, just like the equatorial regions do today. Then you had continental drift (ie; plate tectonics) which moved the then equatorial regions to where they are today. The oil moved with the plates because it's in the plates.

You can also see why there's so much oil in the Gulf of Mexico region. It's in the same equatorial plane as Saudi.

To explain the North sea oil feilds, you have to go back a little further to a continent named "Laurasia", which held the entire north sea region in the equatorial region for millions of years as well.

Not that these are the only regions that produce oil, but it's why there a concentrations in those areas compared to others. It's the plant growth that makes oil more than anything else and a climate favorable to plant growth means an area that's more likely to (in time) produce oil.


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## rwm (Aug 25, 2022)

The US must have had real border security problems back then...


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## great white (Aug 25, 2022)

rwm said:


> The US must have had real border security problems back then...


nah, wouldn't have had any borders, therefore no border problem......


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## cjtoombs (Sep 19, 2022)

For those earlier that were thinking about liquifying your own air, you will need to remove the CO2 and water vapor down to very low levels before liquefaction, as these will solidify and gum up your efforts.  While doing it at home is possible, I think it will be quite difficult to do it on a useful level.  And you haven't even gotten to the distillation portion of the process to separate them yet.


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## G-ManBart (Sep 19, 2022)

I stopped by my LWS last week and asked if they have heard anything about an argon shortage and they said I was the first to even mention it.  They did say helium or helium blends were nearly impossible to get right now.  They said the big shop nearby gets ten bottles a month, and that's it.


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## WobblyHand (Sep 19, 2022)

cjtoombs said:


> For those earlier that were thinking about liquifying your own air, you will need to remove the CO2 and water vapor down to very low levels before liquefaction, as these will solidify and gum up your efforts.  While doing it at home is possible, I think it will be quite difficult to do it on a useful level.  And you haven't even gotten to the distillation portion of the process to separate them yet.


Understood.  Without an affordable source for a high enough volume compressor (to overcome thermal losses) the whole idea looses its appeal.  Distillation isn't that hard.  Having liquid air, would be sufficient for my needs.  Although for safety, perhaps I should boil off the oxygen.  

Unfortunately nitrogen boils at -196C and oxygen at -183C.  So a boiling air mixture would become oxygen enriched, since the nitrogen was escaping as the dewar warmed.  I guess then one could re-compress that nitrogen and liquefy it.  Seems to be a complicated project.  Oh well, another pipe dream...


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## cjtoombs (Sep 19, 2022)

I believe that real air liquefaction plants have pretty much all their hardware made from aluminum, as it doesn't get as brittle at the low temps.  They build a building to house the process equipment and once the equipment is inside they fill it with insulation.  I think distillation of air is a lot more complex than you might think, especially if you want any kind of purity or you want to extract the argon.  Especially if you want any kind of cost effectiveness.


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## WobblyHand (Sep 19, 2022)

cjtoombs said:


> I believe that real air liquefaction plants have pretty much all their hardware made from aluminum, as it doesn't get as brittle at the low temps.  They build a building to house the process equipment and once the equipment is inside they fill it with insulation.  I think distillation of air is a lot more complex than you might think, especially if you want any kind of purity or you want to extract the argon.  Especially if you want any kind of cost effectiveness.


To keep this thread on track:  It's hard to believe there is an argon shortage.  Argon is relatively abundant.  There could very well be local shortages, from unknown causes.  For all we know, a local store had insufficient volume and they were removed from distribution...

To continue this particular hijack for a few more moments:  I only asked about this in passing, to see if anyone know of a compressor design that I could make.  It would be "cool" to make my own liquid air, pun intended.  There was no intent to separate argon, or even oxygen.  The urls I visited did mention the CO2 and water removal issue, which appears to be somewhat manageable.  I wanted merely to see if it could be done truly DIY and at a low cost.  Not to enter into full scale production, competing with the giants in the industry!  So far it would seem that no one has pointed to a compressor design that could be made in a home shop, that was suitable for this application.  If anyone knows of such a set of plans, it would be nice to see them.


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## cjtoombs (Sep 21, 2022)

Based on earlier posts it doesn't seem there is an Argon shortage.  Now, back to the off topic topic:

One problem you run into with liquefaction of something like air is that room temperature is above the critical temperature of the air.  Which means you could compress it until the cows come home and it won't liquify.  If I remember correctly, in actual liquid air production, part of the liquid air produced is used to chill the condenser (after most of the heat is removed by other means.  The data for the temperature/pressure relationship for the boiling/condensing behavior of air is available.  You could take a look at that and see if dry is is below the critical temperature and then get the pressure you would need to condense with dry ice.  That would give the pressure requirement.  I think building a home built compressor in the ~2000 psi range would be possible.  I think it would get progressively more difficult beyond that.


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## WobblyHand (Sep 21, 2022)

cjtoombs said:


> Based on earlier posts it doesn't seem there is an Argon shortage.  Now, back to the off topic topic:
> 
> One problem you run into with liquefaction of something like air is that room temperature is above the critical temperature of the air.  Which means you could compress it until the cows come home and it won't liquify.  If I remember correctly, in actual liquid air production, part of the liquid air produced is used to chill the condenser (after most of the heat is removed by other means.  The data for the temperature/pressure relationship for the boiling/condensing behavior of air is available.  You could take a look at that and see if dry is is below the critical temperature and then get the pressure you would need to condense with dry ice.  That would give the pressure requirement.  I think building a home built compressor in the ~2000 psi range would be possible.  I think it would get progressively more difficult beyond that.


It is true that room temperature is above the critical temperature of air.  However, if one expands air, it's temperature drops.  We can use this effect to self cool the system until the critical temperature is reached.  It takes a while, and one needs good insulation, but it does work.  I am under no illusion that this is a trivial task.  However, that does not stop me from daydreaming how I could do it.

Hydrogen, as a fun fact, gets hotter as it expands, at least a room temperatures.  Therefore a compressed hydrogen leak tends to ignite the leaking hydrogen.  Which is why dealing with hydrogen is really difficult.  One needs UV detectors to see the burning hydrogen, since there is very little visible light given off.  Just things getting very hot where the leaks are.  The heat, obviously can compromise the system.  One needs to cool hydrogen significantly before the expansion coefficient changes sign.  

High pressure air systems, like for PCP airguns, can regularly achieve 4500PSI, however they usually are quite low volume.


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## pontiac428 (Sep 21, 2022)

James Prescott Joule would spit out his single malt hearing that business about PV=NRT not applying to hydrogen.  It exhibits some weird effects when forcing it through thin films or filters, but the change in temperature still follows the ideal gas law.


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## WobblyHand (Sep 21, 2022)

pontiac428 said:


> James Prescott Joule would spit out his single malt hearing that business about PV=NRT not applying to hydrogen.  It exhibits some weird effects when forcing it through thin films or filters, but the change in temperature still follows the ideal gas law.


At room temperature, all gases except hydrogen, helium, and neon cool upon expansion by the Joule–Thomson process when being throttled through an orifice; these three gases experience the same effect but only at lower temperatures.[5][6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule–Thomson_effect

Fires from leaks of high pressure hydrogen is a real thing.  Sorry to burst your bubble tonight.  Have a single malt.


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## pontiac428 (Sep 22, 2022)

That is the weird effect I was talking about, forcing through an orifice, film, filter, or diffuse matrix.  But if you take a liter of hydrogen and expand it (without letting it escape through microscopic fissures), it will get cooler just like the gas law says.


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## WobblyHand (Sep 22, 2022)

pontiac428 said:


> That is the weird effect I was talking about, forcing through an orifice, film, filter, or diffuse matrix.  But if you take a liter of hydrogen and expand it (without letting it escape through microscopic fissures), it will get cooler just like the gas law says.


Perhaps there was some misunderstanding or the context was weird.  Can't use the Linde expansion process to directly make liquid hydrogen from room temperature, because of this heating effect (in hydrogen, and a few other gases).  Mostly the gas law works, except when it doesn't.  Probably because the gas in question doesn't behave as an ideal gas when the expansion results in the gas doing work.  This chart shows the JT coefficient for a couple of gases.


Nitrogen will liquefy from expansion through an orifice at all temperatures below about 600K.  So the Linde process for air liquifaction can start from room temperature.  However, hydrogen needs the gas to be chilled to below 200K before the coefficient changes sign.  Above 200K, hydrogen heats when escaping through and orifice.  This heating can self ignite hydrogen, which burns with a predominantly UV light, ie, not visible.  Compressed hydrogen is quite difficult to deal with, because of this.  Every leak can be though of expansion through an orifice.  You can see from the chart that helium has an even lower temperature before the JT coefficient becomes positive.  

At all temps where the coefficient is negative, expansion through an orifice results in heating!  Even nitrogen has such a temperature.  If nitrogen gas temperature is above 600K and it is allowed to escape through an orifice, nitrogen will heat, not cool.

Physics is fascinating, and can be weird too.


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## Winegrower (Sep 22, 2022)

Really interesting, Wobbly.   This is surprising and remarkable, and not covered in any physics class I ever had.
This is important to me as I use Deuterium as a main gas in energy experiments. 



WobblyHand said:


> This heating can self ignite hydrogen, which burns with a predominantly UV light, ie, not visible.


it’s really UV?  Not IR?


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## WobblyHand (Sep 22, 2022)

Winegrower said:


> Really interesting, Wobbly.   This is surprising and remarkable, and not covered in any physics class I ever had.
> 
> 
> it’s really UV?  Not IR?


Puts out a lot of UV.  There's IR as well.  But UV is commonly used for detection of low level hydrogen leaks.  (Which typically auto-ignite.)  The UV is the signature of a hydrogen-oxygen fire.  IR just tells you something is burning.  If you see a lot of UV, its likely a hydrogen fire.  Looking for a reference...  Found plenty showing propane and hydrogen fires under visible and IR.  Need to find something on UV.


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## thewacokid (Sep 22, 2022)

Yeah the only gas we're currently running out of is Helium so good to hear you found other avenues to get it.


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## WobblyHand (Sep 22, 2022)

@Winegrower Found a link on https://zenodo.org/record/1258847/files/article.pdf  Title is _Visible Emission of Hydrogen Flames_
Shows a strong UV signature of hydrogen burning.  IR sensors are common place, UV ones not as much.




So there is plenty of IR.  But strong UV is also found with burning hydrogen.


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## great white (Sep 22, 2022)

WobblyHand said:


> @Winegrower Found a link on https://zenodo.org/record/1258847/files/article.pdf  Title is _Visible Emission of Hydrogen Flames_
> Shows a strong UV signature of hydrogen burning.  IR sensors are common place, UV ones not as much.
> View attachment 421000
> 
> ...


Not my feild and certainly not an “expert” on chemistry/physics, but does that chart demonstrate ir/uv emissions from the state change or the chemical reaction from H to oh/h2o?

If creation of molecules is the case, seems any heat energy is  more attributable to the creation of the compounds than the expansion of a liquid to gas.

Like I said, I’m no expert on it, just making an uninformed observation….


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## WobblyHand (Sep 22, 2022)

great white said:


> Not my feild and certainly not an “expert” on chemistry/physics, but does that chart demonstrate ir/uv emissions from expansion or the chemical reaction from H to oh/h2o?
> 
> If that is the case, seems any heat energy is  more attributable to the creation of compound than the expansion of a liquid to gas.
> 
> Like I said, I’m no expert on it, just making an uninformed observation….


The article, written at the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia National Labs, states the figure is combustion.  The paper is 8 pages, and contains some interesting pictures.  It is worth a quick read, in my opinion.  The article states the test conditions.

The Joule Thompson effect is entirely different.  Leaking compressed room temperature hydrogen heats, depending on the pressure ratio.  Very low relative pressures, like found in a laboratory burner, will only slightly heat.  Like in a bunsen burner.  A 0.5 psi leak is entirely different hazard than say a 1000 psi leak.  The low pressure leak will result in flammability or explosion hazard issues as a result of the leak.  High pressure leaks tend to self ignite, perhaps after filling the area with hydrogen.  The flame is practically invisible in daylight.  The open flame could cause other issues in an industrial environment.  

Can't profess to be an expert, but my father did work with hydrogen, at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT during and after WWII.  I learned a bit about hydrogen safety from him.  As a technician in the lab, he fabricated some of the early magnetrons and similar microwave devices.  H also worked on the linear accelerator there.  He did all sorts of fabrication using all sorts of materials, trying to aid the war effort.  Built and used his own hydrogen brazing furnaces at MIT.  Later on, after attaining his degrees, he continued to work at MIT.


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## great white (Sep 22, 2022)

WobblyHand said:


> The article, written at the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia National Labs, states the figure is combustion.  The paper is 8 pages, and contains some interesting pictures.  It is worth a quick read, in my opinion.  The article states the test conditions.
> 
> The Joule Thompson effect is entirely different.  Leaking compressed room temperature hydrogen heats, depending on the pressure ratio.  Very low relative pressures, like found in a laboratory burner, will only slightly heat.  Like in a bunsen burner.  A 0.5 psi leak is entirely different hazard than say a 1000 psi leak.  The low pressure leak will result in flammability or explosion hazard issues as a result of the leak.  High pressure leaks tend to self ignite, perhaps after filling the area with hydrogen.  The flame is practically invisible in daylight.  The open flame could cause other issues in an industrial environment.
> 
> Can't profess to be an expert, but my father did work with hydrogen, at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT during and after WWII.  I learned a bit about hydrogen safety from him.  As a technician in the lab, he fabricated some of the early magnetrons and similar microwave devices.  H also worked on the linear accelerator there.  He did all sorts of fabrication using all sorts of materials, trying to aid the war effort.  Built and used his own hydrogen brazing furnaces at MIT.  Later on, after attaining his degrees, he continued to work at MIT.


Again, just an uniformed observation, but if the test state is combustion (ie: producing oh and h20), it would seem to imply that any thermal and ir/uv emission are a result of the combustion (ie: chemical reaction), not the expansion of the hydrogen.


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## WobblyHand (Sep 22, 2022)

great white said:


> Again, just an uniformed observation, but if the test state is combustion (ie: producing oh and h20), it would seem to imply that any thermal and ir/uv emission are a result of the combustion (ie: chemical reaction), not the expansion of the hydrogen.


The article I linked in post #47 is about *combustion* only.  Not the JT effect.   I linked it to show the UV and IR combustion emissions only.

The figure in Post #43 is about the Joule-Thomson coefficient, which is negative at temperatures above 200K (about -73C) for hydrogen.  A negative coefficient means heating (not cooling) upon expansion through an orifice.  A positive coefficient means cooling upon expansion through and orifice.  Normal air (nitrogen and oxygen) will cool upon expansion, for all temperatures below 600K.  You don't have to believe any of this, but you won't be able to liquefy helium, hydrogen or neon from simple orifice expansion, unless the compressed gas temperature is low enough that the Joule-Thomson coefficient is positive.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule–Thomson_effect  If you have an alternate informed opinion, with references, I'd be glad to hear it.


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## great white (Sep 22, 2022)

WobblyHand said:


> The article I linked in post #47 is about *combustion* only.  Not the JT effect.   I linked it to show the UV and IR combustion emissions only.
> 
> The figure in Post #43 is about the Joule-Thomson coefficient, which is negative at temperatures above 200K (about -73C) for hydrogen.  A negative coefficient means heating (not cooling) upon expansion through an orifice.  A positive coefficient means cooling upon expansion through and orifice.  Normal air (nitrogen and oxygen) will cool upon expansion, for all temperatures below 600K.  You don't have to believe any of this, but you won't be able to liquefy helium, hydrogen or neon from simple orifice expansion, unless the compressed gas temperature is low enough that the Joule-Thomson coefficient is positive.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule–Thomson_effect  If you have an alternate informed opinion, with references, I'd be glad to hear it.


Ah, I think I see what happened here. It appears you are making two assertions and I somehow got the two merged in my thoughts. It seems the two subjects are:

1. That burning hydrogen produces IR/UV and,
2. that the expansion of hydrogen has a net delta gain in temp.

Not to be snarky here, but as to “informed/uniformed”, I understand everything you have both said in your discussion.

I used “uniformed” because while I understand the principles and some of the specifics on the topic, its just not my feild so I say “uniformed”.

Now, I’m out. You gents have fun.


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## WobblyHand (Sep 22, 2022)

great white said:


> Ah, I think I see what happened here. It appears you are making two assertions.
> 
> That burning hydrogen produces IR/UV and that the expansion hydrogen has a net delta gain in temp.
> 
> ...


Sorry to chase you off.  It was not intended.  It was to further the discussion, with references, so others could learn something new.  Re: uninformed, I only have the words you typed.  Had you not used that particular word, I wouldn't have responded so, um, pointedly.  My sincerest apologies to you for my reaction to that word.  I hope you accept my apology.  It's not my field either.  I'm a jack of many trades, expert in few, but can usually apply what I know. 

Lot's of folks have told me over my lifetime that "you can't do that" sort of thing, for an offbeat idea, but they were wrong.  With sufficient need or motivation and a little cleverness, many times you _can do that_.  You just have to do it a different way, a way other than what _they_ were thinking.

Honestly, the hijack of mine was about liquefying air, and how to make a compressor of sufficient capacity.  A few people piled on telling me it (air liquefaction) effectively couldn't be done because of x, y and z.  Never made the assertion it was trivial, but it surely can be done.  The Linde process and its variations are used world wide.  

All I originally wanted to know was if anyone knew of designs of (air) compressors that were capable of sufficient capacity, and if it was possible to make such a design in a home shop.  I probably don't even have the requisite mechanical and machining skills to attempt this.  I'm just an amateur, and a late bloomer at that.

Honestly just daydreaming, but who knows, if you get the bug, sometimes you have to go for the dream.


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