Neon - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Terry Bites
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 05:11:46 pm
content: The Ukraine is one of the worlds biggest suppliers of Neon. A vital chemical in chip production. More chipaggedon fun.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 05:26:49 pm
content: QuoteAhem. I believe the official name for it is 'Ukraine'. Pays to get this right at the moment

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 05:39:14 pm
content: While this is true, it’s not because of special availability of a natural resource. Rather, simply existing production capacity. (Apparently, neon is simply extracted from the air.)

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 07:26:54 pm
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on March 15, 2022, 05:26:49 pmWhy? He's in the Britain.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 09:01:47 am
content: Quote from: Benta on March 15, 2022, 07:26:54 pmWhich is part of the UK, formally part of the EU.

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 09:55:47 am
content: All noble gasses are petroleum and gaz production and refining by-products, Texas ,Alaska has huge untapped resources, frozen by USA Biden Administration control by eco radicals and climate change religion.Helium, argon néon prices are booming,Bon courageJon

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 10:06:12 am
content: Quote from: tooki on March 15, 2022, 05:39:14 pmNot sure if 'simply' is the right word. While gas distillation is a straightforward process, distilling it to several nines of purity in industrial quantities might not be so simple. If nothing else, creating the machinery, tweaking the process and gaining the knowledge will take time.QuoteNo. Helium yes (though byproduct is a tad misleading), the others no.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 10:21:14 am
content: Quote from: jonpaul on March 16, 2022, 09:55:47 amNo, as someone has already said in this thread, commercial Neon production is by fractionating air. In fact onlyoneof the noble gasses is commercially produced as a byproduct of the petroleum and natural gas industry, Helium. Argon, Krypton and Xenon are commercially produced by fractionating air. Radon is a byproduct of uranium processing. If you want any Oganesson you're out of luck as there is no commercial production and so far only 5 or 6 atoms of it have been detected to have existed.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 10:57:54 am
content: Helium does appear in natural gas because it is procured by radioactive decay of unstable isotopes in rocks. But other noble gasses are mostly just floating around in the air.Everything from Argon to Xenon is produced from air separation.The issue is that the process of doing this is not easy. They can't be chemically separated due to being noble gases, so fractional distillation has to be done (thus means rather extreme cold temperatures). Most air separation plants are only interested in the oxygen and nitrogen (end even then not to a very high purity) so the other leftover stuff is just thrown away. They can put in a bit more effort to also get Argon out of it since there is quite a bit of it in the air (quite a useful shielding gas). But separating out the more rare gases down the periodic table is more difficult. Getting it to the 99.9...etc % purity is even more difficult. So producing this on a large enough scale to be profitable requires a lot of big expensive specialized equipment and specialized people that know how to run it.If they do start to run out of chip fab grade neon gas the price will eventually get high enough for other air separation plants to consider putting in the effort to turn those waste gases into pure neon.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 06:26:29 pm
content: Ukraine and Russia are also major suppliers of fertilizers, so that's probably a bigger source of concern than neon, to be honest. The man's gotta eat.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 06:56:36 pm
content: To give more meat to the arguments presented previously, the big markets for liquified gases are nitrogen, oxygen and argon. All of those boil in the 77 to 90 Kelvin range. Neon boils at 27, a whole different world of cryo. Another whole layer on the normal product of the common gases. Then add that Neon is only about 0.002 percent of the atmosphere (compare to Argon at 0.9 percent).You really have to want it to get it at all, and then getting it really pure kicks it up another couple notches.I wonder if the original plant investment in the Ukraine came from the Soviet era when market forces weren't predominant in deciding what to do?

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 06:58:36 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 16, 2022, 09:01:47 amActually, the UK isformerlypart of the EU.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 07:19:53 pm
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on March 16, 2022, 06:58:36 pmRead my post again.Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 16, 2022, 06:26:29 pmAnd wheat. I really hope the farmers are sowing, rather than fighting, otherwise there will be food shortages.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 08:07:07 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on March 16, 2022, 06:56:36 pmSo whatever does **not** condense in the normal high volume cryo plant is probably mostly neon?Sure you have to take that dribble of cold gas and do a whole load of post processing, but getting at the raw (concentrated) feedstock does not feel like it should be a problem for Air Liquide or BOC of whoever if the incentive is there to add the post processing magic.I think we have bigger issues, lots of H-B capacity was in Ukraine and Russia, and Ammonia is sort of important.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 08:31:27 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 16, 2022, 07:19:53 pmReading your post again doesn't change anything that I can see.The UK is formally NOT part of the EU (Brexit happened, yes?)

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 08:49:43 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on March 16, 2022, 08:31:27 pmI'm sure this was just a slip. (Freudian slip?)And that said, the fact the UK is not in the EU anymore doesn't change much when it comes to the impact of the current conflict on them.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2022, 02:53:37 am
content: Ukrainian and to a lessor extent Russian, Neon comes to the US as large liquid cryo tanks. Most of the actual cost is the distribution tank, the tank pressure test, packing, purity testing, and senseless hazmat fees. Three years ago I was given a number for the raw cost of the actual refined gas as a little more then a Dollar a Litre at STP,, prior to packing;One of the things that really shocked me, was when my distributer told me he would buy the raw liquid here, ship it to Ukraine for purification, then bring it back.In my case, isotopic separation is sometimes needed as well; which is not difficult but is very time consuming. That gets really expensive, but can lead to ~ 20% increase in laser performance.In the case of Neon , isotope separation is a thermal process..If this were peacetime I would post links to a beautiful web site explaining how its done. But not now. Suffice it to say you can nix the idea of the "Large Ex Soviet Plant"Steve

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2022, 08:28:59 am
content: $1/l of gas sounds pretty expensive to me. I believe 1l is about 1g…

author: BrokenYugo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 12:44:55 am
content: Given the purity a buck a gram doesn't sound bad to me. I don't think this is the sort of neon used in signs and indicator lights, I would think that only needs to be pure enough to give the right color.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 01:11:03 am
content: Quote from: westfw on March 17, 2022, 08:28:59 amAh, I see we've forgotten high school physics. 1 mole of any gas occupies 22.41 litres at STP (Avogadro's law + ideal gas law), neon has an atomic weight of 20.1797(6) so it's going to be closer to 900mg.I'm quite surprised to have remembered that 22.41 litres because I don't think I've ever had a practical use for the figure in the 50 odd years since I learnt it.

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 01:58:30 am
content: Quote from: Cerebus on March 18, 2022, 01:11:03 amAh, but 1g isabout900mg.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 06:50:30 am
content: Lamp mixes are 99.9995 or better purity. A trace of Argon can be added to form a Penning mixture to lower the ignition voltage. For neon indicator lamps or trigger tubes used in control circuits a trace of Kr-85 can be added to aid in firing in the dark.Any trace of oxygen, nitrogen, or hydrogen is bad news in lighting. Mixes for flourescent lamps at one time had a trace of nitrogen to cause heating of the lamp wall to aide in vaporizing the mercury in winter. Nixie mixes could contain a tiny amount of mercury vapor to reduce electrode erosion by sputtering.jIt is difficult to buy neon in less then five or six nines purity unless you order a blend.The slightest amount of nitrogen raises the firing voltage and switches emission to a more or less dim violet color.Steve

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 07:53:00 am
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on March 18, 2022, 01:58:30 amSorry, but

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 11:57:42 am
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on March 18, 2022, 01:58:30 amAh, a man who only ever uses E6 series resistors.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 01:59:58 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 16, 2022, 08:49:43 pmJust me miswording it, someone correcting it and me being blind to my own error. Even when I reread it. I still read what I meant to have written, rather than what was there. :palm:I'm sure there's a name to this phenomenon, which isn't unique to me. Of course I can now see, I implied the EU used to be part of the UK, when of course the opposite was true.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 02:22:20 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 16, 2022, 09:01:47 amQuote from: Zero999 on March 18, 2022, 01:59:58 pmNot to belabour the point, but the difference was between the use offormally(officially), andformerly(in the past)"The UK is formally (officially) part of the EU." -- no longer true"The UK was formerly (previously) part of the EU." -- currently true

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 07:50:54 pm
content: Luckily, as far as I'm aware, we don't have any Neon production facilities, so we can safely be ignored.EDIT: Actually, not true, BOC sells it...https://www.boconline.co.uk/en/products-and-supply/speciality-gas/pure-gases/neon/neon.html

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2022, 03:47:10 pm
content: Is that $1 a litre for gas compressed to how many bar or as liquid or at atmospheric pressure asthis would make a vast difference to cos a dollar a litre for liquid would be cheap considering the energy inputs required.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2022, 07:12:59 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on March 19, 2022, 03:47:10 pmSTP Standard Temperature and Pressure, so for gas at 1 atmosphere, at 25C, so when fully expanded to atmospheric pressure, not a compressed gas.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2022, 09:12:03 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 16, 2022, 06:26:29 pmThe ammonia used for fertilizer is produced from natural gas through the Haber process, so the two are intimately linked. When natural gas prices rise, fertilizer prices follow them.Quote from: Zero999 on March 16, 2022, 07:19:53 pmFertilizer and diesel shortages within Ukraine will limit what farmers can produce, and heavy equipment like tractors is being taken into military service so will be unavailable anyway.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2022, 08:58:59 pm
content: In this case it is probably a shortage due to evacuating the tiny number of mission critical persons with PhDs who actually know the process details. As well as the technicians. There are what, maybe 50-100 people in the world with the Neon refinery skill set at any given time? All of a sudden they go from "Ordinary Joe" business person to national asset in time of war.If I was in a war zone as science officer and I found an undamaged isotopic gas plant, I know it'd want to crate it up and send it to the home country..That makes preserving people and construction drawings critical.Steve

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2022, 10:10:12 pm
content: Quote from: LaserSteve on March 20, 2022, 08:58:59 pmIf you were, one hopes you'd been adequately briefed on your obligations under the Geneva Convention relating to the protection of civilian property so you knew that you shouldn't, even if you wanted to, as that would be a war crime. It's only permissible to expropriate military materiel. Cryoin and Ingas are both civilian organisations.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 12:39:21 am
content: Quotethat's very optimistic. Perhaps they go from "valuable technical expert" to "soldier." While neon might be a valuable international commodity, I expect that it won't be much of a priority in wartime. "We need weapons! And Medicine. And maybe food.."

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 01:32:30 am
content: Quote from: Cerebus on March 20, 2022, 10:10:12 pmI am sure that Putin and the Russians are spending a great deal of time evaluating whether their actions are compliant with the Geneva Convention. Same for the Ukrainians.War is a desperate business, and the rules are written by the victors.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 02:36:29 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on March 21, 2022, 01:32:30 amYes, but LaserSteve is from a civilised country that one hopes teaches its military to comply with the Geneva Conventions, which incidentally can trace their ancestry via the Hague Conventions back to the Lieber Code which was itself a product of the American Civil War.It's precisely because war is a nasty business, and some people use it as an excuse to behave beyond the necessary horrors thereof, that we have things like the Conventions, have had international war crimes tribunals and have the International Criminal Court and other international institutions to make sure that the victors don't get to write arbitrary rules. It's not perfect, but it's better than "Might makes right".

author: Vovk_Z
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 08:54:29 am
content: When we are talking about Russia I don't see much thinking about Geneva conventions (at their side).

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 11:31:28 am
content: For the chemical purification of neon I don't see large technical hurdles and very special expertise needed. So it could be relatively fast for a new plant to be set up somewhere in the US and / or western Europe or ramp up the facility in China. It is not a big thing, more like a rather special niche product.The isotope separation may be a bit more compliated, but still not a huge volume - maybe ask the Iran ?The more critcal product from the Ukrain is food and this is already starting to imparct northern africa.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 01:21:00 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on March 21, 2022, 11:31:28 amIt's a question of what you're calling "relatively fast". I've heard figures of 2 years before you could get a plant on-stream being passed around and that doesn't seem unrealistic to me. One would need to build a plant that does fractional distillation at cryogenic temperatures (Ne boiling point 27 K, -246ºC), one would need to build it ultra-clean to start with, cool it down, and then run it long enough to purge unwanted gas residues from all the internal surfaces before taking out production gases. The purging bit is critical, as how quickly surface contaminants are likely to be purged is proportional to the square root of thermodynamic temperature. Remember that to purge surfaces of residual gas in a vacuum system onebakesit at as high a temperature as the system will allow (120ºC is fairly typical).Oh, and on a pedantic technicality, it's notchemicalpurification, it'sphysical. You can't chemically purify neon, what with it being anoblegas and all.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 01:21:08 pm
content: I didn't know Geneva applied to civilian industry.Thanks for the education.The laboratory scale isotope enrichment process for neon is very much like the gravity drip process for heavy water. Build a vertical tall pipe, run a glowing hot heating element down it's center, fill with natural neon, wait hours or days for equilibrium, tap off tiny amount at each end.There is also a DC high current glow discharge method using cataphorisis.Neither of the above is fast , nor do they produce any reasonable quantity. Both can be ran by graduate students. Neither is commercially viable.The hot vertical pipe process was used in World War Two to produce slightly enriched UF6 feedstock. It is anything but efficient.So I'd agree, two years to add a retrofit to a large existing cryo plant would seem reasonable.Edit,Incidently the US has a few working calutrons for very, very, small scale production of various metal isotopes for medicine etc. That project must cost a small fortune to run.Steve

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 01:28:08 pm
content: Quote from: LaserSteve on March 21, 2022, 01:21:08 pmWell, most of the time we can thankfully be completely ignorant of the details as we can be with anything that we (perhaps optimistically) believe we will never have anything to do with. If you're interested in the details it's the Fourth Geneva Convention "relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War".

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 02:26:12 pm
content: For the hope and sanity of Scope Clockers, HF Hams who use tubes, Nixie Fans, the vast consumers of Tunnel Diodes and SRDs, guitar amp users, and lovers of all things surplus Vacuum Fluorescent, the World must immediately act to end this senseless conflict.I cannot live without more IP-9 tubes!I call for immediate no fly zones over the vast home garage warehouses of antique electronic glass and "Hollow State" in both conflict Nations.OH, Save the Humans too!Steve

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 03:34:06 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on March 21, 2022, 11:31:28 amThe reality is that planning, designing, procuring and constructing a new plant to produce a gas like neon in industrial quantities would take a matter of years, not months, from initial concept to starting production. The only way it could be faster is if there is an existing plant that could be re-purposed.Neon is produced as a by product of air separation by fractional distillation, and there are many air separation plants in existence and many companies with this expertise. However, capturing the neon and further purifying it to the required quality for industrial consumers needs further distillation steps, which is new plant that probably doesn't exist already.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 03:48:06 pm
content: More correctly there were regional trace gas plants in many of the worlds existing plants. Then economics and excessive shareholder greed caused first consolidation, then closure of the regional plants. Usually citing the cost of labor, not the cost of operation. Then we go to ship the whole process overseas to "cheaper" and sell off national reserves. It is the "MBA" way and it can stifle innovation and eventually kill off the company in return for enhanced short term gain.Since in many cases the Steel Mill using the Oxygen LN2 and possibility Argon from the plant essentially subsidizes the plant, pulling off the trace gasses in vapor phase or mixed phase should not be that expensive in the first place.I work for chemical engineers, if there is any chance at all to profit from a plant's waste stream they Will find it.Steve

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 04:04:51 pm
content: A possibility there, is if the old plants were mothballed instead of being fully decommissioned. Re-starting a mothballed plant is much faster than starting from scratch.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 05:19:39 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on March 21, 2022, 04:04:51 pmNot a chance, industrial plant real estate is valuable, it would have rapidly been used for something else, either for more gas condensing equipment, or simply repurposed to extend existing plant into to increase production volume. Or it would have had every part stripped out to repair existing plant, and then used for warehousing or stores, or even used for office space.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 06:08:25 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on March 21, 2022, 01:32:30 amA different scenario, perhaps more likely than Russia nicking the plant, is that they go in with the aim of destroying it. Since the West have implemented sanctions and more or less dried up any technology kit transfer, it's not like Russia would suffer much for the lack of neon whereas we would. Sounds like the perfect tit-for-tat on their part.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 01:46:01 am
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on March 21, 2022, 06:08:25 pmForget about Neon, just wait until world's Palladium's stock drying up as Russia is the top exporter, catalytic converter in cars will be stolen like crazy on the street.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 06:04:27 am
content: Quotethis is already the case. :-(

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 07:14:13 am
content: ok, this takes basically steel, air and electricity to run.The first part, steel, heavy steel, makes businesses cry because its a big capital expense.So if airgas cuts on the exec sports car raise bonus, and invests in heavy metal, they will be able to sell neon. It will take a while to figure out that you can make things by buying equipment in today's business world (really, who would have thought?), but I am confident someone will eventually realize it. This one is a little confusing because they might be confusing neon with hot air, which they can generate ALOT of without equipment.Ukraine has alot of nuclear power so its economical to run those there, but you can also do this in France easily.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2022, 08:14:44 am
content: Chip industry under threat with neon production set to fall off a cliff following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine->https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/25/russia-ukraine-war-laser-neon-shortage-threatens-semiconductor-industry.htmlQuote ...Based on estimates from consultancy firm Techcet, worldwide neon consumption for semiconductor production reached roughly 540 metric tons last year. Given Ukraine produces over half of the world’s neon, the figure could fall below 270 metric tons in 2022 if the nation’s neon producers remain shut.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2022, 09:43:31 am
content: The laser gas should not consume the neon. It is more the rest (flourine / chlorine) that is lost and contaminations added. Chances are the could recycle most of the gas. This would still need some speciallized facilities. Because of the transport hazzards chances are this would be close to the main factory sites.