Helium

History

Discoveries

Helium was first detected on August 18, 1868 as a bright yellow line with a wavelength of 587.49 nm in the spectrum of the chromosphere of the Sun, by French astronomer Pierre Janssen during a total solar eclipse in India. Janssen was at first ridiculed since no element had ever been detected in space before being found on Earth. October 20th the same year, English astronomer Norman Lockyer also observed the same yellow line in the solar spectrum and concluded that it was caused by an unknown element after unsuccessfully testing to see if it were some new type of hydrogen. Since it was near the Fraunhofer D line he later named the new line D3, distinguishing it from the nearby D1 and D2 doublet lines of sodium. He and English chemist Edward Frankland named the element after the Greek word for the Sun god, Helios, and, assuming it was a metal, gave it an -ium ending (a mistake that was never corrected).

Related Topics:
First detected - August 18 - 1868 - Wavelength - Spectrum - Chromosphere - Sun - Pierre Janssen - Solar eclipse - India - Space - Earth - October 20 - Norman Lockyer - Sodium - Edward Frankland - Helios - Metal

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British chemist William Ramsay isolated helium on March 26, 1895 by treating cleveite (now known to be uraninite) with mineral acids. Ramsay was looking for argon but noticed the yellow D3 line after he removed nitrogen and oxygen from the gas liberated by the sulfuric acid he put on the cleveite sample. These samples were identified as helium by Lockyer and British physicist William Crookes. It was independently isolated from cleveite the same year by Swedish chemists Per Teodor Cleve and Abraham Langlet in Uppsala in Sweden. They collected enough of the gas to accurately determine its atomic weight.

Related Topics:
William Ramsay - March 26 - 1895 - Cleveite - Uraninite - Acid - Argon - Nitrogen - Oxygen - Sulfuric acid - William Crookes - Per Teodor Cleve - Abraham Langlet - Uppsala - Sweden - Atomic weight

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An oil drilling operation in Dexter, Kansas created a gas geyser in 1903 that contained 12% by volume of an unidentified gas. American chemists Hamilton Cady and David McFarland of the University of Kansas discovered it was helium and published a paper in 1907 saying that helium could be extracted from natural gas. Also in 1907, Ernest Rutherford and Thomas Royds demonstrated that an alpha particle is a helium nucleus.

Related Topics:
Oil drilling - Dexter, Kansas - Geyser - 1903 - Hamilton Cady - David McFarland - University of Kansas - 1907 - Natural gas - Ernest Rutherford - Thomas Royds - Alpha particle - Nucleus

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Helium was first liquefied by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1908 in Leiden by cooling the gas to less than one kelvin. He tried to solidify it by reducing the temperature to 0.8 K but failed because helium does not have a triple point temperature where the solid, liquid and gas phases are at equilibrium. It was first solidified in 1926 by his student Willem Hendrik Keesom who subjected helium to a similar amount of cooling as Kamerlingh Onnes but at 25 standard atmospheres of pressure.

Related Topics:
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes - 1908 - Leiden - Kelvin - Triple point - 1926 - Willem Hendrik Keesom

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In 1938, Russian physicist Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa discovered that liquid helium-4 has almost no viscosity at temperatures near absolute zero, a phenomenon now called superfluidity. In 1972, the same phenomenon was observed in liquid helium-3 by American physicists Douglas D. Osheroff, David M. Lee, and Robert C. Richardson.

Related Topics:
1938 - Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa - Viscosity - Absolute zero - Superfluid - 1972 - Douglas D. Osheroff - David M. Lee - Robert C. Richardson

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Production and use

Great quantities of helium were found in the natural gas fields of the American Great Plains, putting the United States in a very good position to become the leading world supplier. Following a suggestion by Sir Richard Threlfall, the United States Navy sponsored three small experimental helium production plants during World War I. The goal was to supply barrage balloons with the non-flammable lifting gas. A total of 200,000 ft³ (5700 m³) of 92% helium was produced in the program even though only a few cubic feet (less than 100 liters) of the gas had previously been obtained. Some of this gas was used in the world's first helium-filled airship, the U.S. Navy's C-7, which flew its maiden voyage from Hampton Roads, Virginia to Bolling Field in Washington, D.C. on December 7, 1921.

Related Topics:
Great Plains - United States - Richard Threlfall - United States Navy - World War I - Barrage balloon - C-7 - Hampton Roads, Virginia - Bolling Field - Washington, D.C. - December 7 - 1921

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Although the extraction process, using low-temperature gas liquefaction, was not developed in time to be significant during World War I, production continued. Helium was primarily used as a lifting gas in lighter-than-air craft. This use increased demand during World War II, as well as demands for shielded arc welding. Helium was also vital in the atomic bomb Manhattan Project.

Related Topics:
Welding - Manhattan Project

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The government of the United States set up the National Helium Reserve in 1925 at Amarillo, Texas with the goal of supplying military airships in time of war and commercial airships in peacetime. Helium use following World War II was depressed but the reserve was expanded in the 1950s to ensure a supply liquid helium as a coolant to create oxygen/hydrogen rocket fuel (among other uses) during the Space Race and Cold War. Helium use in the United States in 1965 was more than eight times the peak wartime consumption.

Related Topics:
Government of the United States - National Helium Reserve - 1925 - Amarillo, Texas - Airship - War - World War II - 1950s - Rocket fuel - Space Race - Cold War - 1965

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After the "Helium Acts Amendments of 1960" (Public Law 86-777), the U.S. Bureau of Mines arranged for five private plants to recover helium from natural gas. For this helium conservation program, the Bureau built a 425-mile pipeline from Bushton, Kansas to connect those plants with the government's Cliffside partially depleted gasfield, near Amarillo, Texas. This helium-nitrogen mixture was injected and stored in the Cliffside gasfield until needed, when it then was further purified.

Related Topics:
U.S. Bureau of Mines - Bushton, Kansas - Cliffside - Amarillo, Texas

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By 1995 32 billion ft³ (1 billion m³) of the gas had been collected and the reserve was US$ 1.4 billion in debt, prompting the Congress of the United States to phase out the reserve starting the next year. The resulting "Helium Privatization Act of 1996" (P.L. 104-273) directed the United States Department of the Interior to start liquidating the reserve by 2005.

Related Topics:
1995 - Congress of the United States - United States Department of the Interior - 2005

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Helium produced before 1945 was about 98% pure (2% nitrogen), which was adequate for airships. In 1945 a small amount of 99.9% helium was produced for welding use. By 1949 commercial quantities of Grade A 99.995% helium were available.

Related Topics:
1945 - Nitrogen - 1949

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For many years the United States produced over 90% of commercially usable helium in the world. Extraction plants created in Canada, Poland, Russia, and other nations produced the remaining helium. In the early 2000s, Algeria and Qatar were added as well. Algeria quickly became the second leading producer of helium (16% of total in 2002). Through this time helium consumption has increased, as well as costs.

Related Topics:
Canada - Poland - Russia - 2000s - Algeria - Qatar

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