Argon Gas - Ar

ARGON GAS

Gaseous argon is tasteless, colourless, odourless, noncorrosive, and non-flammable. Argon belongs to the family of rare inert gases. It is the most plentiful of the rare gases making up approximately 1% of the earth’s atmosphere. It is monatomic and extremely inert, forming no known chemical compounds.

Since argon is inert, special materials of construction are not normally required. Vessels and piping must be selected and designed to withstand the pressure and temperatures involved and comply with applicable codes and regulations.

Industrial Applications

Argon has many different applications in many industries. The most common one is as a shielding gas for arc welding – either in pure form or as part of various mixtures. It is one of the main gases used in filling mixtures for incandescent (filament) lamps, phosphorescent tubes and thyratron radio tubes. Inert gas welding is the preferred method of joining several ferrous and nonferrous alloys.

The metals and semiconductor manufacturing industries employ argon as a purge or inerting gas in furnaces, or other processing steps. In some instances, liquid argon is introduced and then vaporized over the surface of volatile or reactive molten metals to significantly reduce oxidation and/or volatility using an inert “blanket” of gas.

It is also used as a carrier gas in chromatography, sputtering, plasma etching and ion implantations. It provides a blanket atmosphere in crystal growth, viniculture and pharmaceutical packaging. For excimer lasers, argon is blended with fluorine and helium. As an insulation gas, argon is a popular way of improving thermal insulation in multi-pane windows.

It has many protective applications in iron, steel and heat treatment industries – particularly in the case of metals susceptible to nitriding when treated with a nitrogen-based atmosphere.

Less common applications include cryosurgery, refrigeration, decarburising of stainless steel, airbag inflation, fire extinguishing, spectroscopy, spectrometry and purging or balancing in laboratories.

High-volume flow rates of argon are introduced via specialized lances or “tuyeres” in a variety of melting and refining processes. The argon typically acts as a “shroud” gas to provide protection to the tuyere. It also promotes removal of impurities and/or dissolved gases in several refining processes.

We offer the full range of Tanks, Portacryo Tanks & liquid cylinders and on-site solutions to meet all volume and purity requirements.