Compressed Argon Gas

PurityPlus^® Specialty Gases by Weldstar creates and distributes PurityPlus^® Argon for commercial use.

A few significant characteristics eventually led Argon to become an ideal choice for technical jobs, such as providing nuclear researchers with the thick atmosphere necessary to single out neutrons, in the late 1800s:

By far, the most notable early use for dry, high-purity Argon was gassing the globes in incandescent light bulbs at the start of the twentieth century. By and by, with the invention and commercial introduction of gas metal arc (GMAW or MIG) and tungsten inert gas (TIG), welding in the 1940s needed a dense inert gas, generally Argon-based. While none of these are true specialty-gas purity applications, their desirability remains strong and they still compose a major segment of Argon’s sales volume.

Nowadays, the most prevalent specialty gas applications for high-purity Argon include its use as a carrier or background gas in diverse analytical instrument applications, for example: in the discovery and classification of trace and ultra-trace elements by means of Inductive Coupled Plasma Techniques, in Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption, and in Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy. Argon finds further application in many types of Gas Chromatography, notably those that employ a high-efficiency Electron Capture Detector (ECD) or an Ultrasonic Detector (USD). It’s frequently used also as a carrier gas when analyzing hydrogen in helium with a TCD (Thermal Conductivity Detector) or USD. As things have progressed, Argon has seen greater use by the semi-conductor industry as a carrier/purge gas.