What Are Industrial Gases？

Industrial gases are widely use across industry in diverse applications. They are used to produce many different products on a wide range of sites, including steel, chemicals, glass, semiconductors, electricity, shipbuilding, automobile manufacturing, construction equipment manufacturing, paper production, energy, electricity generation, food and drinks, aerospace, agriculture, bio-products, and medicine.

Although industrial gases are used widely in manufacturing all sorts of products, they almost never can be seen and rarely do they remain in form. Industrial gases, simply because they are gases, are often difficult to get a grasp on.

The applications of industrial gases have expanded through the times. Over 100 years ago, the use of a mixture of oxygen and acetylene was developed as a part of the industrial revolution as a gas welding and cutting technique. At the time, this was a state-of-the-art processing technique that allowed people to freely cut and join steel. Gas cutting and welding technology contributed to the industrial revolution by increasing our ability to build and process steel structures, such as bridges and railways. In the 1960s, oxygen steel-making was introduced, enabling a large increase in steel products and supporting a period of rapid economic growth in Japan. From the 1980s onward, demand increased for PCs and other electronic devices that contained semiconductors. But semiconductor manufacturing is not possible without nitrogen and many other electronics material gases. Accompanying development of semiconductor manufacturing processes achieved through repeated cycles of mass production and miniaturization, new applications of industrial gases were born, and new electronics products, such as LCDs, solar panels, and LEDs, came into existence through the use of semiconductor manufacturing processes. This again greatly increased the demand for industrial gases.

And for today’s global climate change problem, industrial gases are providing part of the solution. For example, using oxygen gas instead of air in oxygen-enriched combustion suppresses the consumption of fossil fuels, contributing to a reduction in CO2 emissions. Gas forms of energy, such as hydrogen and ammonia, can be combusted without emitting CO2, creating expectations of their usage to replace fossil fuels as a trump card in decarbonization. The stable supply of food has also become a large social issue. Carbon dioxide enrichment in plant factories and oxygen supply in land-based fish farming are two examples of how industrial gases can contributed to increased food production. Technological revolution in response to the demand of the times has always been accompanied by the application of industrial gases. That is why industrial gases have continued to be used without pause to the present day. Moving forward, as long as the technological revolution continues, it is expected that industrial gases will find new applications. As long as human civilization continues, industrial gases will continue with it.

Many industrial gases are simply elements, which leads to the believe by companies that they are getting the same product regardless of what where they purchase it from. And they are correct in that oxygen, no mater who produces it, has the same physical properties as oxygen. However, the amount, pressure, and purity of that oxygen varies according to the application site. It is the role of industrial gas companies to supply gases to the user site adjusted to the optimum quantity, pressure, and purity. Industrial gas companies have the capability to stably supply these elusive gases to each application site through the best methods possible. According to the conditions of the application site, the industrial gas company selects the best supply method and proposes it to the customer. That is the function of the industrial gas company. Therefore, even though the physical properties and characteristics of each industrial gas are the same, it certainly does matter which industrial gas company the gases are purchased from. The difference lies in the ability of the industrial gas company to continuously supply industrial gases stably and safely under the ideal conditions to the application site.