Emerson Exchange 365

Reducing Helium use by Gas Chromatographs

Many customers have been asking us about options to reduce helium consumption by gas chromatographs or use another carrier gas as their suppliers have informed them of helium supply shortages and increased pricing.

There is an alternative gas that can be used as the carrier gas for most Helium carrier applications.  Unfortunately, it is hydrogen.  Hydrogen is the only gas that has a thermal conductivity that is similar to helium, and thus can be used as a direct replacement.  Other gases, such as argon, have thermal conductivities too close to the components we are typically looking for, and therefore will not provide a good detector signal.

In some situations, it is possible to convert the GC to use hydrogen, and we do have kits available to do this.  In situations where using hydrogen is not practical, we can convert the actuation gas (the gas used to actuate the analytical valves) to nitrogen or air.  This can reduce the carrier gas consumption by half and is relatively easy.

We have created a flyer to explain the issues and the options that are available.  The flyer is available at the Danalyzer and Rosemount analytical sites here:

http://www2.emersonprocess.com/siteadmincenter/PM%20Rosemount%20Analytical%20Documents/Danalyzer-GC-FLR-Helium.pdf

If you have any questions, feel free to post them to this thread.

Regards,

Shane

(link updated on April 11, 2016)

Shane Hale | Global Business Development Director - Rosemount Wireless | Emerson Automation Solutions

shane.hale@emerson.com | T +1 952 204 4737 | M +1 713 447 2839

• gas chromatograph
• Helium

Shane Hale

• 29 Jun 2012 2:36 PM
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5 Replies

• chowyang.neo

  

  • 27 Jul 2012 7:41 AM

  Thanks for this note Shane. I read somewhere that the world is facing a helium crisis - we are actually running out of Helium soon. And that is going to be a problem in many manufacturing processes. Good thing Analytical instrumentations have figured out something.

  May be we should not allow party ballons....:-)...haha.

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• adarochris

  

  • 11 Apr 2016 7:57 AM

  Good morning, this is a very good write up. First, Could please furnish me with relevant information to convert the GC to using hydrogen? Would like to explore that option. Second, what is the acceptable purity (in terms of % concentration) of the helium gas when used as carrier gas for GC operation. Can I used a helium gas with 99% purity?

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• YT Koh

  

  • 11 Apr 2016 8:55 AM

  In reply to adarochris:

  Hi,
  For the conversion to use H2 as carrier gas, one has to choose if Plant N2 or instrument Air will be used. Also, you will need to obtain the actuation gas kit to re-plumb the tubings to that of Figure 2 to allow actuation of the valves by N2 or instrument air. There will also be a need to add restrictor to the "Reference side" of the TCD and some re-plumbing of lines to detector. The Thermal Conductivity detectors will also need to changed to that suitable for H2 to prevent rapid degradation. Other precaution is that if you are placing the GC in an enclosed space then it may also be good to consider a LEL (suitable for H2) to be installed at the top of that space, in case of any leak from the H2 carrier gas.
  As for the purity needed for H2. It will need to be in the range of 99.99% to 99.999% H2. It is not recommended to use 99.0% purity of Helium since it may contain H2O, CO2 and other hydrocarbons which may also be measured by the GC.

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• Shane Hale

  

  • 11 Apr 2016 5:05 PM

  In reply to adarochris:

  Adarochris,
  
  It looks like the old link is broken. Here is the new one:
  www2.emersonprocess.com/.../Danalyzer-GC-FLR-Helium.pdf
  
  What is involved in upgrading your GC to Hydrogen depends on the model of GC and the current application. Read through the flyer, and see if that answers your questions.
  
  It is important to use Ultra-High purity Helium (99.990% or better) as the carrier gas as Helium is sourced from Natural Gas wells, so the contaminants are typically the hydrocarbons that you are trying to measure in your sample. If there are excessive hydrocarbon impurities in the helium carrier gas, then the baseline will be very noisy and result in inaccurate measurements.
  
  Shane

  Shane Hale | Global Business Development Director - Rosemount Wireless | Emerson Automation Solutions

  shane.hale@emerson.com | T +1 952 204 4737 | M +1 713 447 2839

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• Jim McLelland

  

  • 12 Apr 2016 1:37 AM

  Out side the USA it should also be noted that most process plant GC systems run on Hydrogen as a carrier gas .
  Therefore such a change over should not be an issue to the clients already running GC's on Hydrogen carrier.
  
  Regarding the purity Shane's comment is extremely important . If you use 99.0% H2 , the residual 1% ( what ever that consists of)
  will influence the measurement as this is now part of the reference gas.
  You need to know what that 1% consists of before you can even consider the use of this low purity source.

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