Helium is an abundant and valuable element that has many uses. It may be most known for party balloons, but that’s only scratching the surface. From airbags and aircraft to sophisticated medical equipment, helium is present in more places than you may realize.
Keep reading to learn more about the everyday commercial uses of helium and its impact on the modern world.
How Is Helium Useful and What Is It, Anyway?
Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe. It’s colorless, odorless, and lighter than air. It’s produced from natural gas and has the lowest boiling point and melting point out of any element on the periodic table. Even at incredibly low temperatures, it can remain liquid, solidifying only under extreme pressure. Helium is also useful for its low density, inertness, low solubility, and thermal conductivity. Technologies like superconducting materials make great use of helium.
Most helium in the universe is in the stars. What little helium there is on the Earth can be found inside natural gas deposits and radioactive decay. With only 14 helium refineries worldwide, our helium supply is rapidly shrinking. Regardless, our dependence on helium is only increasing. Here are a few popular commercial uses of helium around the world:
Science
Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider is the single most significant use for helium. The machine is the largest and highest-energy particle collider in the world. Scientists use the Large Hadron Collider to investigate the structure of space and time and answer long-standing questions about physics.
The machine requires vast amounts of superfluid helium to operate. As part of an extensive three-stage process, the Large Hadron Collider consumes nearly 100 tons of cooled helium (at -456.34 degrees Fahrenheit) to keep the magnets used to shoot particles from overheating.
Rocket Fuel Tanks
All space shuttle missions use liquid hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. Engineers use helium to clean out the tanks once they’re empty. Because helium is inert (meaning the element doesn’t react with other substances), there’s no risk that it will freeze the pipes or combust with oxygen traces.
