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Helium shortage 2019 cause3/18/2023 Radioactivity had just begun to be explored, and the existence of alpha, beta, and gamma rays was already known at the time helium was first isolated. The late 1800s and early 1900s saw the focus of chemistry expand from reactions involving atoms as a whole to the subatomic realm, on the level of the electrons, protons, and neutrons that make up atoms. The discovery of helium on Earth came at an opportune time in the history of chemistry. Source: Tosaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons The particle quickly picks up two electrons, creating a new atom of helium. When U-238 decays into Th-234 (upper left), it liberates an alpha particle, which is a helium nucleus. While it was first discovered in spectrographs from the sun and other stars in the 1860s, getting enough helium to study and make the determination that it’s an element would wait another 30 years, when a gas with the same spectral signature was released by dissolving a sample of uranium ore in acid. So it pays to know a thing or two about how we get our hands on it.ĭespite the fact that it’s the second most abundant element in the visible universe, helium is surprisingly rare on Earth. While great strides are being made toward improved methods of extraction and the discovery of new deposits, for all practical purposes helium is a non-renewable resource for which there are no substitutes. From leak detection and welding to silicon wafer production and cooling the superconducting magnets that make magnetic resonance imaging possible, helium has become entrenched in technology in a way that belies its relative scarcity.īut where does helium come from? As we’ll see, the second lightest element on the periodic table is not easy to come by, and considerable effort goes into extracting and purifying it enough for industrial use. Helium’s unique properties, like the fact that it remains liquid at just a few degrees above absolute zero, contribute to its use in countless industrial processes. The degree to which helium is central to almost every aspect of daily life is hard to overstate. But in among the shortages of everything from eggs to fertilizers to sriracha sauce has been a growing realization that we may actually be running out of something so fundamental that it could have repercussions that will be felt across all aspects of our technological society: helium. With a seemingly endless list of shortages of basic items trotted across newsfeeds on a daily basis, you’d be pardoned for not noticing any one shortage in particular.
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