SGR
Supplement 2 | Second Quarter 2015 www.specialtygasreport.com
SPECIALTY GAS REPORT A supplement to CryoGas International, dedicated to the specialty and medical gases business
UHP Hydrocarbons What Are You Looking For?
Pittcon 2015
A Specialty Gas Report Show Review
Inside... Red Ball Oxygen Profile Selecting the Best Gas Delivery System Specialty Gas Automation Food and Beverages – Making the Grade
insight
UHP Hydrocarbons
The Cornerstone for Optimum Production of Blends By Kelly Glaze Since establishing its first specialty gas laboratory in 2004, Coastal Welding Supply’s Specialty and Industrial Gas divisions have considered Ultra High Purity (UHP) Hydrocarbons the cornerstone for optimum production of blends which are vital to our industry. Gas purity is the key element in the proper operation of instrumentation and is essential in obtaining precise, accurate, and repeatable results. With a company standard of 99.99 percent purity or better, depending on the product, Coastal’s specialty gas lab can always meet or exceed a customer’s expectations. Just as important is the delivery of the blend to the customer. A specialty gas must always meet or exceed a particular set of specifications. The quality of results achieved in the lab begins with a cylinder free of all contaminants. The process of creating an “evacuated” cylinder is just as important as manufacturing the blend. Known as the “baking” process, a cylinder is placed in an oven and baked for eight hours at 140ºF. During the baking process, the tank is purged with UHP nitrogen then quickly placed in a vacuum. This process rids the cylinder’s interior walls of accumulated moisture molecules. The vacuum, and the vacuum further removes other contaminants, resulting in an evacuated cylinder that is ready to be filled and will maintain the integrity of the specialty gas. Once filled, the cylinder returns to the lab for a gas chromatograph (GC) verification of the blend. After passing GC analysis, it is leak checked a final time, painted, labeled, and sealed for delivery to the customer. As labor-intensive as the process is of evacuating a cylinder and then meeting customer specs through careful gas blending followed by GC verification, Coastal recently responded to a Saturday emergency blend request from a local petrochemical plant 6
Specialty Gas Report • Second Quarter 2015
Justin Samuel, Coastal Specialty Gas Chemist, performs testing on an EPA Protocol mixture during the analysis phase.
Wade Siegfried, Production Supervisor and Blender, prepares a specialty gas mixture during the blending phase.
and delivered the same day. Coastal Specialty Gas fully appreciates that maintaining a strong partnership with its customers is just as important as delivering the highest purity of calibration gas and works to exceed those expectations every time.
Standards and EPA Protocols. All products are of the highest quality, produced locally, and are available for prompt, on-time delivery. The Coastal specialty gas laboratory is proud to have achieved the stringent ISO/ IEC 17025:2005 accreditation for the services we provide. Coastal Welding Supply is located in Beaumont, Texas and has eight locations serving the petrochemical industry in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana for more than 50 years. SGR
All products are of the highest quality, produced locally, and are available for prompt, on-time delivery. Coastal Welding Supply produces only the highest quality industrial gases such as UHP carrier gases and welding blends while the Coastal specialty gas laboratory focuses on the production of Calibration Standards such as HRVOC and BTU
About the Author Kelly Glaze is Specialty Gas Quality Manager at Coastal Welding Supply (coastalws.com). He can be reached at 1-800-852-4177.
www.specialtygasreport.com
news
Atlas Copco Acquires ENMET Names Norman Kalibriercentrum Bayern Davis as New President Atlas Copco (atlascopco.com), a leading provider of sustainable productivity solutions, has completed the acquisition of Kalibriercentrum Bayern, which specializes in calibration services. Kalibriercentrum Bayern is headquartered near Munich with an additional laboratory in Kiel, Germany. The company provides labora-
tory and field calibration and related services to customers in such industries as motor vehicle manufacturing and aerospace. The acquired company becomes part of the Service division in Atlas Copco’s Industrial Technique business area. Atlas Copco is a worldleading provider of sustainable productivity solutions. The company serves customers with innovative compressors, vacuum solutions and air treatment systems, construction and mining equipment, power tools, and assembly systems. Atlas Copco develops products and service focused on productivity, energy efficiency, safety, and ergonomics. The company was founded in 1873, is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and has a global reach spanning more than 180 countries.
ENMET, LLC (enmet.com) announced the appointment of Norman Davis, Jr. as the company’s new President, succeeding Dr. Verne Brown who held that position for 43 years until his passing. Davis brings a wealth of knowledge to this position with a background in executive management and in business development, focused in the safety and instrument sensor technology market. He has held a wide variety of positions and was the former President of Microsensor Systems which was acquired by MSA (Mine Safety Appliances) in 2005. Davis’ education is in chemistry, environmental science, and industrial hygiene. Founded in 1970, ENMET is a leading manufacturer of hazardous gas detection equipment for health, safety, and
Norman Davis, Jr. medical applications. In July 2014, ENMET Corporation was acquired by Chicago-based Benford Capital Partners and the new entity, ENMET, LLC, under the leadership of President Norman Davis, Jr., will remain headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
CVD Partners with Penn State on Future 2D Materials CVD Equipment Corporation (cvdequipment.com), a leading provider of standard and custom chemical vapor deposition systems, is entering into an industrial partnership with Penn State University (PSU). Through the National Science Foundation’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program, Penn State University has been awarded $1.96 million for Two-dimensional Atomiclayer Research and Engineering (2-DARE). This PSU project, headed by Professor Joan Redwing, will leverage CVD Equipment Corporation’s engineering and manufacturing capabili10 8
ties to advance the deposition technologies and processes for producing novel 2D materials beyond graphene. The main focus will be on developing and optimizing the techniques for producing crystalline 2D transition metal di-
This work will pave the way for the future production of 2D materials as they find their place in widespread industrial applications
Specialty Gas Report • Second Quarter 2015
chalcogenides (TMDs) such as molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and tungsten diselenide (WSe2). This work will pave the way for the future production of 2D materials as they find their place in widespread industrial applications. Over recent years, the demonstration of graphene’s remarkable physical properties has led to the emerging application of graphene in many next generation products and devices. Although there is still much work to be done to fully understand graphene, many researchers have turned their attention to other 2D materials
with equally promising and often unique properties. As such, a whole host of 2D materials are under vibrant interdisciplinary scientific study with an exciting outlook for disruptive technological advancements in big businesses such as semiconductor, optoelectronics, structural, and environmental applications, amongst others. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and atomic layer deposition techniques are proving to be powerful for producing these atomically thin materials, but the often home-built university lab deposition equipment is limited in its process capabilities. www.specialtygasreport.com
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Gas Innovations UHP filling facility, La Porte, Texas
What are Ultra High Purity Hydrocarbons? One Question Begs Another: What Are You Looking For? By Ashley Madray Any discussion of ultra high purity (UHP) grade hydrocarbons must start with a qualifier: since there are multiple industries using these products — for multiple applications — definitions of the “highest grade” are fluid. For example, the industrial gas industry, and its line of atmospheric products, differs greatly from the oil and gas industry’s line of products and hydrocarbons, as relates to measurements, nomenclature, and certificates of purity. Even within the industrial gas space, with its focus on atmospheric products, there are some differences in nomenclature, but most agree on the same general reporting and contaminant identification for the different grades of gases and what constitutes UHP is generally agreed upon. To set the stage, it’s helpful to look at the oil and gas industry and 34 14
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its reporting of purities and contaminants. This industry very rarely deals with grades such as Zero or UHP, instead operating with crude, refinery, chemical, polymer, refrigerant, aerosol, wet, dry, lean, and rich grades, among others. Purity in the oil and gas industry typically means 90 percent plus assay. Higher grades of hydrocarbons, such as UHP or even research grade, are more commonly used in the industrial gas industry, and the products available at these grades are: butane, isobutane, ethane, ethylene, propane, propylene, methane, 1-butene, isobutylene, cis-2-butene, trans-2-butene, and others. Propane, the 3-carbon, simple hydrocarbon containing eight hydrogen atoms may be the most common. Propane most commonly comes from natural gas wells and the natural gas stream. It is one of the basic/simple hydro-
Large propane-style LPG tanks carbons generally referred to as a natural gas liquid (NGL), of which there are five: ethane, propane, butane, isobutane, and pentane. Each of these NGLs may carry a nomenclature for particular specification, which alludes to levels of certain contaminants in each. These specifications begin at the wellhead or other initial point of identification, such as the refinery output, well-head, or byproduct stream from a petrochemical plant. Some of these identifiers include pipeline, crude, treated, etc. Propane carries four initial grades, which refer to the assay, or percentage of the pure product. The grades, including EPmix, HD5, HD10 and Commercial Grade, are specific for intended user groups at the most industrial and commercial levels. HD5 is generally considered the consumer grade, used for fuel or barbecue pits. HD10 and Commercial Grade are sub-HD5 grades and are commonly found as fuels in California. Ethane primarily carries a Y Grade designation following its initial separation after the well head; the alternative grade for ethane is “purity.” Y Grade designation comes from the mix characteristics that this product has and the fact that it is at a Y juncture of separation from the stream. The pressure at which ethane liquefies is much higher than the other NGLs. This Y of separation is relevant to steps taken to purify ethane and may be better understood by viewing Figure 1 (next page). Hydrocarbons, then, can be liquefied via pressurization. While temperature may prowww.specialtygasreport.com
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Overall view of Linde’s new automated specialty gas facility in Indiana.
Specialty Gas Automation
Next Generation Process and Analytical Processing By Hector Villarreal In February 2014 Linde launched their new automated specialty gas facility in Hammond, Indiana. The 4000-sq-ft. facility is an addition to Linde’s established 35-yearold production facility. This investment is the first silo in Linde’s focus to establish a dominant position in US production of specialty gases. When the new spec-gas facility launched production, plant manager Jack Taylor told local media, “This new facility melds perfectly with Linde’s goal to be a total gas supplier, and reinforces our commitment to our independent distributor network.” In order to ensure that the new plant had every possible advantage in the marketplace, Linde embarked on automating as much of the specialty gas process as possible. Recognizing that end users had changing needs in regards to purity, accuracy, and uniformity drove Linde’s decision to invest heavily in next generation equipment. The laundry list of next generation equipment follows.
worse product based on the same basic blue print,” stated Don Renner, Sales Engineer Manager at Weldcoa. “In 2006 one of our clients requested that we design and build a very advanced bake out oven for one of their clients, a pharmaceutical company. Their wish list of features forced us to reimagine how everything could be done differently in the specialty gas prefill process,” said Carl Schmidt Weldcoa Director of Engineering. “We deconstructed and then automated the classic bake out oven in order to provide greater control over vacuum, temperature, and purging with multiple gases. The result was a much more efficient bake out process. The end design was well received by the pharmaceutical company and several of our automated bake out ovens were ordered. We then simplified some of the build out in order to provide a more cost-effective and yet more advanced form of bake out oven for Linde.”
The Importance of the Prefill Process “The Prefill Process is a crucial process within the specialty gas market and yet industry wide the cylinder bake out oven had become a cookie cutter design. Every supplier of bake out ovens made a slightly better or
Gas Blending Cells “If you look at what existed prior to Precision’s design of the manual blend cell you would see a history of trial and error. Every facility used basically the same components, laid out slightly differently, even within the
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same company. This was a result of how the equipment was installed onsite,” said Renner. “For the first time, the Precision Blend Cell design provided the industry with a commercially available uniform design that was manufactured completely at the manufacturer’s facility and then shipped after being oxygen cleaned. The result was a fast install that was simple and uniform.” The phone booth-like equipment comes with cabinet, a scale on the floor of the cabinet, a control panel, multi-component or single component source manifolds on the sides of the unit, and an orbital fill head. The choice of stainless steel, Monel 400, or brass for the piping and orbital fill head material is dependent on the application. Because the unit, regardless of application, is designed very similarly, there is now a uniformity and consistency that never existed before. Training at one facility easily transfers to another facility using a Precision Blend Cell. This also simplifies the maintenance as some components are interchangeable. Automated Gas Blending Cells The Precision IQ-S Automated Blend Cell has all of the advantages of its manual cousin but is able to fill product at a pace, uniformity, accuracy, and consistency never before thought possible by the industry. One welltrained chemist can now do the work of several chemists. Or well-trained technicians can operate the automated blend cell while being supervised by a single chemist, thus freeing up the chemist to focus on the overall operation of the lab, production, and technical support for sales. The IQ-S allows the operator to choose a recipe or to create a new recipe on the fly and then, once the operator has entered the necessary data, the system takes over and controls the entire fill process. This includes complex mixes such as EPA Protocols. Weldcoa’s system works in conjunction with Asterisk’s Specialty Gas Manager. Cylinder Inversion Another product that has become a staple at specialty gas facilities is the cylinder roller. This is another example of a status quo design that had remained unchanged for decades. The problem with the classic cylinder www.specialtygasreport.com
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Food and Beverages Making the Grade By Ron Ball Over the years, as regulations evolved, many independent companies experienced some level of confusion about which grade of gas they were permitted to supply to what type of company or application. While most firms have figured out which companies they can sell medical grade to and which companies they cannot, a new set of issues has recently arisen around food and beverage grade gases that is once again creating some of the same kind of confusion. This article will examine the differences between food and beverage grade gases and attempt to clarify this issue. Food Gases Food gases are those gas products either labeled as food grade, or when sold are intended to be used as an ingredient in “food”, or as an item expected to be delivered with a food product as part of the packaging or 34 28
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processing. In the US some, but not all, food grade gases are listed in an official document called the Food Chemical Codex (FCC). The Food Chemical Codex, which is owned by the United States Pharmacopeia, is a quasigovernment organization tasked by a joint resolution of Congress to develop and maintain the official listing of food items and their monographs in the United States. Products listed in the FCC have specific product monographs. These FCC product monographs establish the purity specifications and the amount of any potential contaminants for a product. FCC monographs also establish the specific procedures that describe in detail how any analytical testing for product purity or contaminant testing is to be performed. Under US regulations the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authority to reg-
ulate any product listed in the FCC just by virtue of the inclusion of that product in the FCC list. This means food gases such as carbon dioxide and (food grade) nitrogen are directly regulated under FDA authority as they are part of the FCC list. However, there are a growing number of gases currently being marketed to food companies that are not listed in the FCC, such as argon and oxygen to name just a few. It may surprise some people to know that the FDA also has the full legal authority to regulate these products, even though they are not officially listed in the FCC. Under the FDA Food Code, the term “food” has multiple definitions. One of those definitions defines food as any item sold or labeled as food grade or when sold the items are intended for use in a food product. This means the FDA has the legal authority to regulate gas products if they are sold as food grade or if when sold, they are intended for use in a food product. In other words, just because the FCC has yet to list a number of gases as food grade, those products — when sold as food grade or for food applications — are FDA regulated products. For example, firms selling argon to wineries, where the argon product is used to inert the wine, and firms selling oxygen www.specialtygasreport.com