Cradle to Consumer
Identity ID
1b21f402-a30a-4d7a-b874-56f5a38ad3a4
Materials
Associated ID
b8d26186-85b5-4511-b3f4-bdf3da292f30
Included activities starts
Included activities ends
Description
This dataset is a market dataset representing the consumption market of the region. The dataset includes the transport of the product from the gate to the consumption end, and the transport service is calculated based on the transport situation of the product in the region. This dataset represents the production of 1 kg of helium from BOG (containing helium flash gas); the BOG is obtained without environmental burden, as it is considered to be the waste gas lost from other production processes; helium is widely used in fields such as superconducting equipment cooling, welding shielding gas, leak detection, gas filling, and low-temperature physics experiments; helium is modeled as a pure substance, and when modeling this substance, users need to add the solvent of their choice in the model; the dataset includes the main raw and auxiliary materials, energy, and water and air emissions of the production process, while infrastructure such as production equipment manufacturing and plant construction is not included within the dataset boundary; the data inventory is formed by merging data from multiple sources; the production activities of this product include processes such as BOG compression, crude helium extraction, catalytic dehydrogenation, and helium refining. Methane-rich desorption gas is a by-product of this production process.
Activity Description
The production activities of this product include BOG compression, crude helium extraction, catalytic dehydrogenation, helium refining and other processes.
Process Description
Helium chemical formula He, CAS number 7440-59-7, is a colorless, odorless and tasteless inert gas at normal temperature and pressure. It is one of the gases with the smallest density known (density is about 0.178g/L under standard conditions), and is extremely difficult to dissolve in water. Its chemical properties are extremely stable. It hardly reacts chemically with any substance regardless of room temperature or high temperature environment, and it is not flammable or toxic. Helium is widely used in cooling of superconducting equipment (such as nuclear magnetic resonance instruments, particle accelerators), welding shielding gas (to avoid high-temperature oxidation of metals), leak detection (testing the tightness of pipelines and containers), gas filling (balloons, airships, etc.), and low-temperature physics experiments.
Time period
2022
2026
Geography
China,Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region
Macroeconomic value
Business-as-Usual
Data validation
Yes
Technology
Current Technology
Technology comment
Due to heat intrusion from the external environment, a large amount of BOG (also known as nitrogen-containing flash gas) is generated daily through gasification in LNG storage tanks, with a helium volume content much higher than that of the atmosphere (the helium content of BOG in China is about 3%), making it a low-cost raw material for helium extraction. If these BOG are processed using traditional methods—heated, pressurized, and returned to the upstream unit—part is used as fuel gas and part is recycled and liquefied. However, directly using helium-containing BOG as fuel gas is considered a waste of resources. In the recycling liquefaction process, helium cannot be liquefied together with methane and continuously accumulates in the system, ultimately affecting the purity of liquefied natural gas and equipment operation. BOG helium extraction can obtain scarce helium that cannot be chemically synthesized, and the remaining tail gas, primarily composed of methane, can still be used as fuel gas. Thus, this process yields dual benefits in resources and energy and represents the core technical direction for expanding China's helium production capacity, with its market share rapidly increasing as the LNG industry develops. Specifically, the feed gas from the BOG buffer tank is separated into helium, hydrogen, nitrogen, and methane in the crude helium extraction unit to obtain a helium-rich mixture, then hydrogen is removed in the catalytic dehydrogenation unit, and finally the crude helium is sent to the refining unit for separation of trace impurities to produce high-purity helium.