Enrichment of helium from hydrothermal gases

摘要

Extraction of gaseous helium from natural sources is potentially important for its use in frontier technologies and as an essential ingredient for advanced research. In India, an attempt is being made to harness helium from hot spring gases, since India lacks helium-bearing natural gases or petroleum reserves. In this effort, we have developed and fabricated a helium-enrichment plant based on the principle of cryo-condensation. The plant has been commissioned successfully and is now in operation. Although the plant has been designed analytically, it is unique in the sense that it can enrich helium from 0.75 vol% to similar to 90.0 vol%. The basic principle, approach and philosophy of the plant have been discussed in this paper. The plant process has been computer-modelled to optimize and understand the relevance of the various process parameters. This model is capable of predicting the yield of enrichment efficiently for a pre-assigned setting of the process parameters.