US Helium Shortage Drives Recycling Efforts

GE Healthcare uses about 5.5 million liters of helium a year in the manufacture of new MRI machines, as well a further six million liters to service and top off existing MRI systems at hospitals and clinics, some of which need as much as 10,000 liters of liquid helium in a sealed vacuum system surrounding the magnet to function. The helium cools the machines’ magnets to minus 269 degrees Celsius (near absolute zero), at which point they lose all electrical resistance and become superconductive.

The new facility will be built next to GE Healthcare’s existing MR production plant in Florence (SC, USA), and will use proprietary techniques to capture waste helium from ongoing operations and liquefy it for future use in MR superconducting magnets. GE is concomitantly developing new system designs to boost helium efficiency, including proprietary conservation technologies, which could lead to future systems needing as little as 10 liters of helium to function.

“When you power up a super-cooled magnet, it can produce the same magnetic field for a thousand years with no more power required,” said Trifon Laskaris, PhD, chief engineer at GE Global Research, and a pioneer in imaging technologies, who has been awarded his 200th US patent, a milestone previously reached by only one other GE research lab employee, Thomas Edison.

The 1996 Helium Privatization Act required the US to sell its helium stores to pay USD 1.3 billion in debt that had accumulated over a 10-year period during which the US helium reserve had been buying helium—a waste product of natural gas—for storage in porous rock deep underneath Amarillo (Texas, USA). The US Congress mandated the phaseout, claiming it the reserve was an “unnecessary relic,” since federal agencies could procure helium more cheaply from private suppliers, such as Exxon Mobil (Irving, TX, USA).

Although Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen), decades of imprudent use (such as party balloons) has resulted in depletion, while the low prices resulting from the sell-off of the US reserve has given few private producers an incentive to enter the market. In 2013, Congress passed the Helium Stewardship Act, designed to ease the pending helium shortage, but businesses such as GE and Intel (Santa Clara, CA, USA) are not taking any chances, and are promoting recycling and innovation to help keep helium from becoming a hot commodity. In the meantime, Helium from Qatar, which is building the world’s largest processing facility, will alleviate some supply concerns.

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