Uses of Helium

By: Want To Know It

Helium is a noble gas with the chemical symbol He. This post will take you through some of the common uses of helium.

Common Uses of Helium

• Helium is used to cool superconducting magnets in MRI scanners.
• As helium is lighter than air, airships and balloons can be filled with the gas to gain lift.
• Helium is used to condense hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket fuel.
• Helium can be added to oxygen tanks so that divers can breath more easily. This is especially important for people that go deep diving (over 450 ft below sea level).
• Used in helium-neon lasers. These lasers can be used to read barcodes.
• Helium can be used to detect leaks in high-vacuum and high-pressure equipment.
• For materials easily contaminated by air, helium is used as a shielding gas in the arc welding process.
• Helium is used as a protective gas when growing silicon and germanium crystals and when producing titanium and zirconium. It is a fantastic protective gas as it is inert (unreactive).
• The age of rocks which contain uranium and thorium can be estimated using helium dating.
• Helium is often used as a carrier gas in gas chromatography.
• Helium can be used to detect leaks (small fractures) in some vessels.

Related Topic

Who Discovered Helium

Uses of hydrogen

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