Helium
Helium is the
second most common element
in the universe,
representing
about 23 % of the total matter. 76 % is Hydrogen.
All
other
elements represent
an insignificantly small fraction of the total.
Helium was
discovered
by
spectroscopy
in a solar eclipse on August
18, 1868.
The
discovery in the
sun’s chronosphere
gave the new
element
its name: “helios” in Greek
means
“sun”. While Helium is
very
common
in the
universe most
of it is in the
stars:
on earth it
is actually not abundant.
Since
it is so light all the Helium present
during the formation of earth escaped to space. Helium is created,
deep in the earth from the radioactive decay of Uranium and Thorium
which also
generates
the earth its internal heat. On earth Helium was
discovered
in 1881 by
spectroscopy
of Mount
Vesuvio
in Italy – the
volcanic
gases emanated
by the mountain showed the
same
lines in
the
spectrum
as already known from the sun.
Helium
concentration
in the
atmosphere
is 5
times
bigger than the one
of Krypton and 60
times
higher than
Xenon. The
heavier noble gases
are isolated from air by liquefaction and rectification
process.
Helium
as a contrary is “extracted” from natural gas and oil wells. Helium
comes
up with the natural gas and is separated and stored. The
annual world wide production is ca. 3x10
7
m
3
or
4,500 tons.
Helium is
constantly
seeping up from the ground all around us, but it
is so light that
almost
all of it
escapes
into space fairly rapidly. On the
other hand there is a
constant
flow of Helium from space and the sun
to earth.
This
gives a dynamic equilibrium and is the reason for the
world wide
constant concentration
of ca. 5 ppm Helium in
air
.
Helium is a very light
colorless element
and it is one of the six noble
gases;
it is the
most
difficult gas to liquefy.
Helium is a noble gas, which
means
it doesn’t react with anything for
all practical
intents
and
purposes. It’s used
as an inert shield gas to
protect things from oxidation – and of
course
as leak detection tracer
gas.
Helium is a 100 % green gas and has
absolutely
no environmental
impact on the atmosphere.
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