July 18, 2022
FEnEx CRC and The University of Western Australia researchers Roman Weh, Gongkui Xiao, Ehsan Sadeghi Pouya and Eric May have found there is an 8% higher recovery rate of helium using non-cryogenic methods. Low-cost helium recovery processes optimised for unconventional sources e.g. small-scale natural gas (NG) reservoirs offer a new approach to meeting growing demand.
Why does this matter? Helium is in short supply globally and is already listed as a critical commodity by the Australian Government. When we think of natural gas developments, we don’t necessarily consider the high-value gases that are being accessed. Helium is one of those gases – essential for the medical industry and for both purging and finding leaks in systems designed for high pressure hydrogen. It’s also required to make fibre optics, semi-conductors and arc welding: the list of uses is long.
The full paper is available .