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"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 8 months ago by L4s to c/technology

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"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America::For a century, the U.S. Government-owned the largest helium reserve in the country, but the biggest exporters now are in Russia, Qatar and Tanzania. With this new discovery, Minnesota could be joining that list.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No helium found on earth ever, was pure enough for cryo. Not even close. All helium is found in low concentrations and spun extracted to concentrate and start to purify it. Then there are additional filter methods to finish concentrating it. Removing the hydrogen is about the hardest because it's also abundant and small and light.

But helium used in balloons can absolutely be concentrated and purified.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 8 months ago

hydrogen is the easy one, because you can burn it off on catalytic bed, then pass through bed of 3A MS to trap water. done

separating excess oxygen and nitrogen is easier and there's already some nitrogen (as much as 50%) in crude helium