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13 min ago 4 min read
Helium recovery is becoming a higher priority for manufacturers as supply security overtakes cost savings as the main driver for gas recycling, according to an expert from Nippon Sanso Europe.
Jarne van Belleghem, Account and Business Development Manager for Specialty Gases at Nippon Sanso Europe, said enquiries about recovering and reusing helium have risen sharply in recent years.
“Everybody has seen that not only the availability, but the prices [of helium] are rising sharply,” he said during a gasworld webinar.
“We get a lot more questions about people who have waste helium with maybe some extra impurities in it … if there is a possibility to recuperate it in a system and reuse it again.”
The company – which he said used to get this kind of question once a year – is now receiving the same question every month.
While investment in helium recovery is not new, van Belleghem believes the motivation behind it has changed.
Suppliers have reported in recovery, purification and liquefaction systems in recent years as users responded to repeated helium shortages and volatile prices.
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Now, he said, companies are looking beyond financial returns and using recovery systems to protect production from future supply disruptions.
Five to 10 years ago, recovery systems were largely judged on their economic return because “the productivity behind it was quite low.”
“It is not only [from] a productivity point of view anymore … it’s from a supply chain point of view to make sure that the manufacturers have more control over their own processes,” he explained.
The growing interest in recovery reflects a broader change in how manufacturers evaluate specialty gas suppliers, he added. Rather than focusing solely on price, customers are now asking more about supply resilience and transparency.
“We have seen in the past … with the helium shortages, that supply is super important for businesses,” said van Belleghem.
“They are asking us to be way more transparent in our sourcing. They even ask us what kind of sources we are using at this moment for different types of gases.”
And it does not extend just to helium, but the full spectrum of rare gases.
“It’s about pretty much everything that is linked to geopolitical pressure.”
“Being able to have a resilient supply chain is more valuable than the money that is behind it because once there is not a product available, the costs can be substantial,” he said.
However, recovery may not be a viable option for everyone at all times. Helium recovery systems themselves can cost several million dollars to install, making payback hard to justify outside of shortage periods.
“It’s often not the cost that drives companies to invest in recycling, but the fear of not being able to get the molecule at all,” Rich Brook, President of helium consultancy Garrison Ventures, told gasworld . “That’s what we saw in Helium Shortage 4.0.”
He added that companies were typically less interested in recovery technology once market conditions improved.
“[Helium] recycling will always resurface during shortages, and when the shortage ends, the motivation to recycle fades just as quickly,” he said.
Van Belleghem’s comments suggest that may be beginning to change.
With the prospect of looming, manufacturers may be looking to recovery technology not simply as a cost-saving measure, but as insurance against future supply disruptions.
The full webinar, ‘Specialty gases and the new manufacturing footprint’, can be watched on-demand .
