Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, VoL 31, Nos.

1-2, 1995

H E L I U M IN R U S S I A

O. A. Ben'yaminovich

In March 1995 a hundred years will have passed since the English chemist W. Ramsay first observed helium on Earth
in a gas given off from the mineral cleveite. News of this discovery appeared in 1895 in the Russian journal Nature and People
[Priroda i Lyudi], No. 34. In 1896, the Russian chemist V. N. Menshutkin described the history of the discovery of helium
and presents information on its properties from foreign (mainly English) sources in an article, "Helium," in Nos. 1 and 2 of
the Bulletin of Experimental Physics and Elementary Mathematics [Vestnika Opytnoi Fiziki i t~lementarnoi Matematiki].
There was a meeting between D. I. Mendeleev and W. Ramsay in London on March 16, 1900. Both scholars agreed
that there should be a zero group in the table of elements. In the seventh edition of The Fundamentals of Chemistry (1903),
D. I. Mendeleev published the periodic table of elements with a separate group of inert gases.
At the second Mendeleevian Conference in December 1911, Academician V. 1. Vernardskii noted in a report "Gas
exchange in the Earth's core" that helium is present "in gases that penetrate the Earth's core" and "in volcanic gases and in
the Earth's atmosphere" and that "helium passes out of the atmosphere into space." At the end of the report he emphasized
that research into natural gases is not of only scientific interest: "Natural gas is a powerful source of energy, and we Russians
either don't touch it or else we mindlessly waste it. It can be used wisely only when it is studied scientifically."
In a 1916 report to the Academy of Sciences, V. I. Vernardskil noted that, in utilizing the elements, Russians made
the least use of potassium, nickel, cobalt, and helium, and added that "geological and technological efforts should show
possibilities for using them."
In 1922, the Commission on Natural Productive Strengths of the Russian Academy of Sciences organized a special Gas
Department which was charged in particular with studying the use of helium for aeronautics to replace hydrogen in lighter-than-
air craft. This problem was important, because a significant part of the USSR is bordered by the Arctic Ocean, and lighter-than-
air craft were given special attention in the plan for trans-Arctic air travel. This Gas Department and the Helium Committee,
formed in 1924, did a lot of investigation and exploration for helium in the many natural gas deposits then known in the
territory of the USSR. The natural gas of the Mel'nikov field in the Saratov region and of the Ukhta petroleum region were
revealed as the most promising for creating a helium-producing industry. In the best case, the natural gas in these fields
contained 0.2-0.3% helium. A study of the geology and geochemistry of helium-bearing gases was started along with the
exploration for helium in natural gas in 1920-1930, and an industrial technology was developed for making helium for
aeronautical purposes from gas with low helium concentrations. The experience in the USA was studied attentively.
In 1920-1930, U.S. industrial equipment extracted helium from natural gas containing 1.5-3.0% helium. In the U.S.
this method was assumed to be economical for processing natural gas with more than 0.5% helium. In 1920-1930, our
specialists examined the feasibility of using absorption and adsorption methods to pre-enrich natural gas with helium, as well
as the possibility of combining the manufacture of ammonia or methane from natural gas as a means of increasing the helium
concentration in the remainder, which then would be reprocessed by subzero cooling. The possibility of obtaining helium in
combination with the manufacture of thermal black from natural gas was studied. Thermal decomposition of natural gas in a
furnace produces gas with a high hydrogen content. It was proposed to burn this gas in the combustion chambers of special
heat-recovery boilers and to use the heat of combustion of the hydrogen to make steam and then electricity. It was proposed
~o process helium-enriched hydrogen obtained after the combustion by subzero cooling.
However there was no sufficient foundation for realizing any of these processes. The scale [of equipment] for producing
helium was incompatible with the scale for processing natural gas. Instead the possibility was examined of obtaining pure
helium directly. It was decided to use subzero cooling to extract helium from the natural gas of the Mel'nikov field by using

I. M. Gubkin State Academy for the Science of Helium (GANG), Moscow. Translated from Khimicheskoe i Neftyanoe
Mashinostroenie, No. 2, pp. 11-12, February, 1995.

64 0009-2355/95/0102-0064512.50 9 Plenum Publishing Corporation

modified air-separation equipment manufactured by the Linde Co. This equipment consisted of lower and upper rectification
columns, an intermediate condenser, and a heat exchanger. The upper column was removed and the space between the tubes
in the condenser was blocked.
The processing equipment took in natural gas made up of 0.15-0.2% helium, 30-40% methane, 59-68% nitrogen, a
trace of ethane, and 0.2-0.4% carbon dioxide. A concentrate containing on the order of 50% helium was removed from the
condenser cap at a column pressure of 0.5 MPa. Helium losses due to solution in the liquefied gas were 5-8%. The helium
concentrate was sent at a pressure of 15 MPa to a helium purifier, which consisted of a coil and a separator immersed in a
liquid nitrogen tank. The liquid nitrogen entered from recesses in the column. The nitrogen in the helium concentrate condensed
inside the coil. The product, containing on the order of 98% helium, went from the purifier to a tank at a pressure of 15 MPa.
The natural gas entering the equipment was pumped up to 20 MPa to conduct the combined process of making the helium
concentrate and then purifying it.
The first helium concentrate was obtained in 1931. The equipment was operated experimentally until 1935.
In 1936 equipment was built to process natural gas at up to 600 m3/h. The separator was a counterflow condenser (still)
with overflow plates in the space between the tubes. Natural gas condensed in the still and the helium concentrate flowed out
the top. The liquifled gas from the still flowed into the space between the tubes. Constructing the still with overflow plates
allowed the same coolant composition to produce a lower temperature in the space between the tubes than could be obtained
with the standard tube arrangement. The concentrate leaving the still at 0.5 MPa contained roughly 50% helium and 50%
nitrogen. The concentrate was reprocessed in separate equipment which cooled the gas in a heat exchanger and then in a coil
immersed in a liquid nitrogen bath. The liquified gas was removed in a separator. Evaporating the liquid nitrogen in the bath
at a vacuum of 550 mm Hg and a temperature of 68 K produced a product containing 98.5-99% helium from the reprocessed
concentrate at a pressure of 15-16 MPa. The equipment was operated through 1939.
In 1940 experiments were conducted in a plant to obtain helium concentrate from natural gas with 85-90% methane,
10-15% nitrogen, and 0.067-0.08% helium.
The gas was processed in equipment consisting of a heat exchanger and a still with overflow plates in the space between
the tubes, which was cooled with a liquified gas consisting of roughly 85-90% methane and 10-15% nitrogen. It was established
that a concentrate with up to 20-25 % helium could be obtained when the pressure in the still was on the order of 2 MPa. In
order to increase the helium extraction coefficient, the fundamental behavior of the process was studied, in particular the
conditions required to lower the helium loss due to solution in the liquified gas.
In 1941-1945, during World War II, helium was not extracted from natural gas in industrial quantities. At the end of
the 1940s, helium became required for metal welding, cryogenic technologies, leak detectors, chromatography, the atomic
industry, [underwater] diving, medicine, and a range of fundamental research. All these areas set requirements on helium
quality, and these requirements became ever more strict.
The discovery of new natural gas and oil deposits in the USSR increased the production of helium-bearing natural and
petroleum by-product gases. All these gases had a very low helium content.
The constant growth in helium demand made it necessary to build new helium extraction equipment and to increase
the productivity of the equipment units in terms of extractable gas. The equipment in the first plant were completed at the end
of the 1940s and in the 1950s to process natural gas containing 0.25-0.3% helium. Later the helium industry had to develop
on the basis of processing natural and by-product gases containing 0.05-0.1% helium.
Relatively small nitrogen natural gas deposits were discovered with a higher helium content, but setting up helium
production from this gas was not deemed feasible.
All of the helium-producing equipment in our country was based on low-temperature condensation of the main
components of the helium-bearing gas. Final impurities were removed by oxidizing the hydrogen and by adsorption at liquid
nitrogen temperatures. With the goal of reducing the cost of extracting helium from poor stocks, combination process were
developed: helium extraction was combined with the liquefaction of natural gas or with the extraction of heavy hydrocarbons
(either propane or ethane plus heavier hydrocarbons) from natural gas and petroleum by-product gas.
The Saratov-Moscow gas pipeline was put into operation at the end of the 1940s. A liquefaction plant for natural gas
was bought from the U.S. to compensate for the nonuniform gas demand in Moscow. The natural gas coming to Moscow from
the Saratov fields contained about 0.05-0.07% helium. Plans to extract helium from the natural gas at the plant were drawn
up and were proposed for implementation. For a series of reasons it became no longer necessary to use liquefied natural gas
to cover nonuniform gas demand in Moscow. The cascade cooling cycle (ammonia-ethylene) of the plant was used to process
all the natural gas coming through the pipeline and to extract the helium.

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 The second combination process - extraction of helium and heavy hydrocarbons from petroleum by-product gases -
was realized in 1960-1970 at two different type of plants: plants to extract propane and heavier hydrocarbons .and plants to
extract ethane and heavier hydrocarbons.
The combined process of extracting helium, ethane, and heavier hydrocarbons from natural gas was applied in 1978
at the Orenburg helium plant.
The Orenburg condensed gas deposk with its large reserves and natural gas production volume became the main source
of helium in our country. This plant processed 375,000 m3/hr (3-109 m3/yr) of natural gas in one unit, which is eight times
larger than the amount of gas processed in each of the units previously operated at other Russian plants. The Orenburg plant
became the main helium producer.
It should be noted that economic equipment for obtaining high-purity helium from poor helium-bearing gases was
created as a result of a large amount of scientific research, testing, and design.
Thus research includes: 1) liquid- vapor phase relationships in binary and multicomponent systems of helium, methane,
and higher hydrocarbons over wide ranges of temperature and pressure, as well as the programming of digital phase relationship
into computers; 2) material separation effects and heat evolution during the condensation of multicomponent mixtures,
particularly those containing helium, as well as the development of calculational methods for industrial condensers; 3) processes
for stripping dissolved helium from the liquefied fractions of process gasses, as well as methods for computerizing the
calculations; and 4) processes of removing nitrogen, hydrogen, neon, and other impurities from helium by using various
adsorbers (activated carbon, molecular sieves, and silicate).
The large volume of scientific research, testing, and design efforts deserves special mention in the development of
equipment, machinery, and fittings for helium plants.
Research was also done into such processes as helium extraction based on the preferential permeability of polymer
membranes for helium, hydrogen removal from helium based on the preferential permeability of palladium capillaries, and
removal of impurities from helium by using short-cycle adsorption without heating.
The process was also examined of extracting helium from the waste gases from ammonia-synthesis plants that used
natural gas as a raw product.
None of these processes are yet in industrial use in our country.

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