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Gaseous materials produced for use in industry

Industrial gases are the gaseous materials that are manufactured for use in industry. The principal gases provided are nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, hydrogen, helium and acetylene, although many other gases and mixtures are also available in gas cylinders. The industry producing these gases is also known as industrial gas, which is seen as also encompassing the supply of equipment and technology to produce and use the gases. Their production is a part of the wider chemical Industry (where industrial gases are often seen as "specialty chemicals"). Industrial gases are used in a wide range of industries, which include oil and gas, petrochemicals, chemicals, power, mining, steelmaking, metals, environmental protection, medicine, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, food, water, fertilizers, nuclear power, electronics and aerospace. Industrial gas is sold to other industrial enterprises; typically comprising large orders to corporate industrial clients, covering a size range from building a process facility or pipeline down to cylinder gas supply. Some trade scale business is done, typically through tied local agents who are supplied wholesale. This business covers the sale or hire of gas cylinders and associated equipment to tradesmen and occasionally the general public. This includes products such as balloon helium, dispensing gases for beer kegs, welding gases and welding equipment, LPG and medical oxygen. Retail sales of small scale gas supply are not confined to just the industrial gas companies or their agents. A wide variety of hand carried small gas containers, which may be called cylinders, bottles, cartridges, capsules or canisters are available to supply LPG, butane, propane, carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide. Examples are whipped cream chargers, powerlets, campingaz and sodastream.

The first gas from the natural environment used by humans was almost certainly air when it was discovered that blowing on or fanning a fire made it burn brighter. Humans also used the warm gases from a fire to smoke foods and steam from boiling water to cook foods. Carbon dioxide has been known from ancient times as the byproduct of fermentation, particularly for beverages, which was first documented dating from 7000 to 6600 B. C. in Jiahu, China. Natural gas was used by the Chinese in about 500 B. C. when they discovered the potential to transport gas seeping from the ground in crude pipelines of bamboo to where it was used to boil sea water. Sulfur dioxide was used by the Romans in winemaking as it had been discovered that burning candles made of sulfur inside empty wine vessels would keep them fresh and prevent them gaining a vinegar smell. Early understanding consisted of empirical evidence and the protoscience of alchemy; however with the advent of scientific method and the science of chemistry, these gases became positively identified and understood. The history of chemistry tells us that a number of gases were identified and either discovered or first made in relatively pure form during the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries by notable chemists in their laboratories. The timeline of attributed discovery for various gases are carbon dioxide (1754), hydrogen (1766), nitrogen (1772), oxygen (1773), ammonia (1774), chlorine (1774), hydrogen sulfide (1777), carbon monoxide (1800), hydrogen chloride (1810), acetylene (1836), helium (1868) fluorine (1886), For example, carbonated water was being made from 1772 and commercially from 1783, chlorine was first used to bleach textiles in 1785 and nitrous oxide was first used for dentistry anaesthesia in 1844. and could be used to generate gases such as hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, chlorine, acetylene and carbon dioxide by simple gas evolution reactions. Acetylene was manufactured commercially from 1893 and acetylene generators were used from about 1898 to produce gas for gas cooking and gas lighting, however electricity took over as more practical for lighting and once LPG was produced commercially from 1912, the use of acetylene for cooking declined. The development of uses in refrigeration also enabled advances in air conditioning and the liquefaction of gases. Carbon dioxide was first liquefied in 1823. The first Vapor compression refrigeration cycle using ether was invented by Jacob Perkins in 1834 and a similar cycle using ammonia was invented in 1873 and another with sulfur dioxide in 1876. Although no one event marks the beginning of the industrial gas industry, many would take it to be the 1880s with the construction of the first high pressure gas cylinders. most notably by Carl von Linde allowing larger quantities of oxygen production and in 1896 the discovery that large quantities of acetylene could be dissolved in acetone and rendered nonexplosive allowed the safe bottling of acetylene. A particularly important use was the development of welding and metal cutting done with oxygen and acetylene from the early 1900s. As production processes for other gases were developed many more gases came to be sold in cylinders without the need for a gas generator.

Air separation plants refine air in a separation process and so allow the bulk production of nitrogen and argon in addition to oxygen these three are often also produced as cryogenic liquid. To achieve the required low distillation temperatures, an Air Separation Unit (ASU) uses a refrigeration cycle that operates by means of the Joule–Thomson effect. In addition to the main air gases, air separation is also the only practical source for production of the rare noble gases neon, krypton and xenon. Cryogenic technologies also allow the liquefaction of natural gas, hydrogen and helium. In natural gas processing, cryogenic technologies are used to remove nitrogen from natural gas in a Nitrogen Rejection Unit; a process that can also be used to produce helium from natural gas where natural gas fields contain sufficient helium to make this economic. The larger industrial gas companies have often invested in extensive patent libraries in all fields of their business, but particularly in cryogenics. The other principal production technology in the industry is Reforming. Steam reforming is a chemical process used to convert natural gas and steam into a syngas containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide with carbon dioxide as a byproduct. Partial oxidation and autothermal reforming are similar processes but these also require oxygen from an ASU. Synthesis gas is often a precursor to the chemical synthesis of ammonia or methanol. The carbon dioxide produced is an acid gas and is most commonly removed by amine treating. This separated carbon dioxide can potentially be sequestrated to a carbon capture reservoir or used for Enhanced oil recovery. Air Separation and hydrogen reforming technologies are the cornerstone of the industrial gases industry and also form part of the technologies required for many fuel gasification ( including IGCC), cogeneration and Fischer Tropsch gas to liquids schemes. Hydrogen has many production methods and may be almost a carbon neutral alternative fuel if produced by water electrolysis (assuming the electricity is produced in nuclear or other low carbon footprint power plant instead of reforming natural gas which is by far dominant method). One example of displacing the use of hydrocarbons is Orkney; see hydrogen economy for more information on hydrogen's uses. liquid hydrogen is used by NASA in the Space Shuttle as a rocket fuel. Simpler gas separation technologies, such as membranes or molecular sieves used in pressure swing adsorption or vacuum swing adsorption are also used to produce low purity air gases in nitrogen generators and oxygen plants. Other examples producing smaller amounts of gas are chemical oxygen generators or oxygen concentrators. In addition to the major gases produced by air separation and syngas reforming, the industry provides many other gases. Some gases are simply byproducts from other industries and others are sometimes bought from other larger chemical producers, refined and repackaged; although a few have their own production processes. Examples are hydrogen chloride produced by burning hydrogen in chlorine, nitrous oxide produced by thermal decomposition of ammonium nitrate when gently heated, electrolysis for the production of fluorine, chlorine and hydrogen, and electrical corona discharge to produce ozone from air or oxygen. Related services and technology can be supplied such as vacuum, which is often provided in hospital gas systems; purified compressed air; or refrigeration. Another unusual system is the inert gas generator. Some industrial gas companies may also supply related chemicals, particularly liquids such as bromine, hydrogen fluoride and ethylene oxide.

Most materials that are gaseous at ambient temperature and pressure are supplied as compressed gas. A gas compressor is used to compress the gas into storage pressure vessels (such as gas canisters, gas cylinders or tube trailers) through piping systems. Gas cylinders are by far the most common gas storage and large numbers are produced at a "cylinder fill" facility. However, not all industrial gases are supplied in the gaseous phase. A few gases are vapors that can be liquefied at ambient temperature under pressure alone, so they can also be supplied as a liquid in an appropriate container. This phase change also makes these gases useful as ambient refrigerants and the most significant industrial gases with this property are ammonia (R717), propane (R290), butane (R600), and sulfur dioxide (R764). Chlorine also has this property but is too toxic, corrosive and reactive to ever have been used as a refrigerant. Some other gases exhibit this phase change if the ambient temperature is low enough; this includes ethylene (R1150), carbon dioxide (R744), ethane (R170), nitrous oxide (R744A), and sulfur hexafluoride; however, these can only be liquefied under pressure if kept below their critical temperatures which are 9 °C for C2H4 ; 31 °C for CO2 ; 32 °C for C2H6 ; 36 °C for N2O ; 45 °C for SF6. All of these substances are also provided as a gas (not a vapor) at the 200 bar pressure in a gas cylinder because that pressure is above their critical pressure.