The Gas Up From Middlesex Gases

There are a number of gases that can be delivered in portable cryogenic vessels for gaseous or cryogenic use but for the purposes of this article we will be discussing the operation of a portable liquid nitrogen vessel. First, it is the responsibility of the end user to be thoroughly familiar with the operation of the vessel and the limitations of the vessel performance. This starts with ordering the vessel. Some vessels are intended for liquid use only, some will deliver gas and/or liquid and some are intended for higher pressure gas use.

There are a number of gases that can be delivered in portable cryogenic vessels for gaseous or cryogenic use but for the purposes of this article we will be discussing the operation of a portable liquid nitrogen vessel. First, it is the responsibility of the end user to be thoroughly familiar with the operation of the vessel and the limitations of the vessel performance. This starts with ordering the vessel. Some vessels are intended for liquid use only, some will deliver gas and/or liquid and some are intended for higher pressure gas use.

Company owners who purchase a Mass Spectrometer (MS) for their business know all too well the impact the purchase of this equipment will have on their company’s future. It is imperative this equipment runs well and often. It may very well be the life blood of a company and the hundreds of thousands of dollars invested will have a specific payback period within the company’s business plan.

The U.S. domestic compressed gas industry is guided by the rules and regulations set forth by the Compressed Gas Association (CGA). They mandate what valve goes on what tank, what pressures cylinders can be filled to, cylinder labeling requirements and a myriad of other regulations too lengthy for this article.

To those of you who are ordering gases for your labs or for the facility, how do you know what grade of gas is appropriate for the application? Are you allowing the people in the labs to “pick” the grade of gas they want? Did you know that there are as many as 12 or more grades of Nitrogen and just as many grades of Helium?

Over the years I have conducted safety / purity audits of hundreds of laboratories and one of the items that undergoes a continuous battering is a cryogenic transfer hose and phase separator. The hose is commonly 4-6 feet long and is intended to deliver a cryogenic product from one vessel to another. The most common use is to deliver liquid nitrogen from a roll around dewar to a secondary vessel or chamber.

Lab safety is an issue that has been getting considerable press in recent years and for good reason. Have you ever thought about the catastrophic results of a gas tank being misused in a lab?
To the untrained employee in a lab the gas tank is just that 200 pound thing against the wall with some hoses attached to it. “If it doesn’t concern my work I don’t worry about it” seems to be the way lab personnel feel about gas cylinders.

The summer months are upon us and there is nothing like a beautiful June in New England with temperatures in the 50’s and enough rain to fill the Congo River to keep us focused on the reality of our day to day lives.
I guess we can look forward to a July in the 90’s but that is a couple of weeks away and full of vacation time. So now is the time while it is dreary outdoors to make the best of it and give our July a kick start.

I received a call from a gentleman recently who seemed to know exactly what gases and equipment he needed for his new lab. This is rare as new start ups commonly have a number of questions regarding these issues.
My potential new customer said he needed Research Grade Hydrogen and Oxygen as well as dual stage, all stainless steel regulators. Ok, that sent up a red flag somewhere in my bald head! Let’s back up gently and start with the gases. First, what is the application?

Recently I had a potential customer from a start-up lab call me to get pricing for gases & gas related equipment for his new facility.
The customer was confident that he knew exactly what he needed. He began with a list of Research & Scientific Grade Gases followed by an elongated list of very high end regulators, manifolds etc.

I had an experience recently that involved a frantic call from a frantic customer. “There is something wrong with the regulator on my CO2 tank,” he moaned. “It stopped working and the incubator ran out of gas. All my cells are gone!”
Needless to say, it was a real tragedy for the customer. Fortunately, the precaution that would have prevented this from happening was at our disposal. Once the customer was placated and the solution explained, what began as a horrific morning segued into a good day for Middlesex Gases, myself and the customer.

Most gas cylinders are high pressure vessels. Pressures range from 100 psi (or lower) to 6000 psi and up from there. The gas in the tank requires a pressure regulator to reduce the pressure to a usable point.
Single Stage and Dual Stage regulators are commonly in use in a variety of applications but few people recognize the difference in the two.

There are some essential, primary safety items that are required for handling Cryogenic Liquids. Let’s use Liquid Nitrogen as an example. It is cold, very cold; it is a bone chilling, skin freezing 321 degrees below zero F.
One drop in your eye would freeze the lens of your eye and shatter it like fine crystal. This would obviously be an extremely painful event and would surely result in the loss of the eye.

Are your gases being delivered in the appropriate mode? In other words, by what means is your lab gas being delivered to your business? Are you using high-pressure cylinders of Nitrogen or Argon to feed your applications?

If you employ a Gas Generator to feed gas to your lab applications, hoods, Mass Specs, etc. Have you considered what would happen if the generator went down?
A very good customer called me recently to tell me they had a generator failure that ultimately cost them nearly $15,000.00 in down time, lost revenue and repairs.

Recently I received a call from a very upset customer of a competing gas company. The caller advised me that his gas prices were going up and he thought he was being “hosed” by his current supplier.
He said “Gas is gas and you just get it from the air. The air isn’t any more expensive than it was ten years ago so the price of the gas should be the same.” He wanted to do business with a gas company that would hold their prices for a few years. Following a patient wait, while he ranted, I was able to explain to this caller that there was an extensive procedure to follow to extract gas from the atmosphere.

To those of you who are ordering gases for your labs or for the facility, how do you know what grade of gas is appropriate for the application? Are you allowing the people in the labs to “pick” the grade of gas they want? Did you know that there are as many as 12 or more grades of Nitrogen and just as many grades of Helium?

I guess we have all heard about the worldwide shortage of Helium in recent months. It is not a rumor, it is very true.
Approximately 20% of the worldwide requirements for Helium is to super cool magnets in MRI machines, another 17% is used in Laser Cutting applications. The list of applications goes on and on and at the lower end of the feeding chain is the balloon vendor with a consumption of about 8%. If you haven’t purchased a balloon lately prepare for some sticker shock!

What is the value of the contents of an incubator? Can you put a price tag on the cell cultures or the research it took to get them to the point they are now? Of course not, so do not let the cells fall victim to the tricks played by the gas that keeps them alive. Incubators use Carbon Dioxide (CO2) gas. Most gas cylinders will announce how much product they have left in them by indicating that pressure on the contents gauge of the regulator. Carbon Dioxide will do no such thing. It will register full right up to the time it goes empty. Why?

What is an incubator? It’s that big refrigerator looking thing you always see in a lab right. It always has a Carbon Dioxide cylinder strapped next to it. Did you ever wonder what is in an incubator or how important the contents are to the customer?
The cell cultures stored in the incubator are the life blood of the customers’ research. They are invaluable in some cases as they can not be replicated. It is not a stretch to say that a single incubator could hold $250,000.00 worth of cells at any one time.

If you use compressed gases or cryogenics in your labs you are accustomed to the day to day shuffle of dealing with these vessels. It’s the same old drag of monitoring inventories, calling in orders, taking deliveries, getting the tanks to the labs, unhooking the empties, hooking up the fulls, maintaining back ups and the daily drudge tolls on and on.

Often the gas in the cylinder is at the appropriate purity level for the application for which it is intended. Be cautious in your purchase of pressure regulators for the cylinder as it must be of the right type and have the appropriate components of construction so as not to contaminate the gas as it is passed through the regulator.

If you use compressed gases or cryogenics in your labs you are accustomed to the day to day shuffle of dealing with these vessels. It’s the same old drag of monitoring inventories, calling in orders, taking deliveries, getting the tanks to the labs, unhooking the empties, hooking up the fulls, maintaining back ups and the daily drudge tolls on and on.

Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) is commonly used in laboratories everywhere. It is a unique element mostly due to its very COLD temperature of -320 degrees F. Many safety issues should be considered when using Liquid Nitrogen. Here are a few to consider.

What separates lab gas suppliers from each other? What are the expectations of their customers and what is the most valuable item that can be delivered – SERVICE!
The need to stay ahead in the gas industry has never been as important as it is today. There are gas distributor sales people in the field every minute of every day selling hard and offering products to each others customers.

There are a number of gases that can be delivered in portable cryogenic vessels for gaseous or cryogenic use but for the purposes of this article we will be discussing the operation of a portable liquid nitrogen vessel. First, it is the responsibility of the end user to be thoroughly familiar with the operation of the vessel and the limitations of the vessel performance. This starts with ordering the vessel. Some vessels are intended for liquid use only, some will deliver gas and/or liquid and some are intended for higher pressure gas use.

Middlesex Gases & Technologies is the preferred vendor for the New Hampshire Biotechnology Council. We are devoted to serving the Life Science community with an extreme level of product quality and service. We are the leaders in New England of advanced product lines to deliver gases to our customers.
To that end, we are proud to announce the delivery of a second liquid nitrogen tanker used to fill customers bulk and micro bulk on-site vessels. The liquid nitrogen MicroBulk vessels are the newest technology to hit New England and Middlesex Gases was the first to introduce it.

There are a number of gases that can be delivered in portable cryogenic vessels for gaseous or cryogenic use but for the purposes of this article we will be discussing the operation of a portable liquid nitrogen vessel. First, it is the responsibility of the end user to be thoroughly familiar with the operation of the vessel and the limitations of the vessel performance. This starts with ordering the vessel. Some vessels are intended for liquid use only, some will deliver gas and/or liquid and some are intended for higher pressure gas use.

During the many safety audits we conduct it is commonplace to find a user of liquid nitrogen putting himself and others in considerable danger by allowing the opportunity for liquid nitrogen to be trapped during his / her application process.
Liquid nitrogen is commonly delivered to an application by use of a stainless steel armor cased cryogenic transfer hose, commonly four feet long. One end is connected to the liquid nitrogen vessel and the other end to the equipment requiring the liquid nitrogen.

Users of Liquid Nitrogen, or any cryogenic gases are all too often disturbed by the violent and sudden shock of the noise produced when a cryogenic vessel safety relief valve “pops-off”. This noise has the same decibel rating as a Cadillac horn. Seeing as the lab personnel are commonly in very close proximity to these vessels, this sudden noise can be a safety hazard as well as a nuisance.