Inert gas ?????

[Hokapsig]

Not to mention that there is a finite supply of it, and it is an invaluable and irreplaceable resource. Using it for, say, balloons or wine is so utterly misguided, IMHO.

Although any lost helium will accumulate in the atmosphere, it is considered an "uncompressible" due to the temperature required to liquefy the air and separate it from the other air constituents. Hydrogen is the other uncompressible, though the Hydrogen that we sent out was recovered from steel mill emissions by pulling out the other contaminants. Our Hydrogen plant was in Magog, Canada.

We are using liquid nitrogen in the Marcellous Shale drilling instead of water. The nitrogen mixed with the sand and was able to move the material down the hole and as the nitrogen's temp increased, it went back into the air from which it came. No mess and no water to contaminate.

 

[sour_grapes]

We are using liquid nitrogen in the Marcellous Shale drilling instead of water. The nitrogen mixed with the sand and was able to move the material down the hole and as the nitrogen's temp increased, it went back into the air from which it came. No mess and no water to contaminate.

Well that is cool! (Neither of the two puns was intended, honest!) I did not know that, and it is good to hear of a way to obviate the water contamination issue.

Although any lost helium will accumulate in the atmosphere,

Actually, that is not true. Helium is light enough that it will reach escape velocity, and be forever lost from the Earth. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape .)

You probably know that the name "helium" means "of the sun." It got this name because it was an unknown element on Earth, and was only discovered from emission spectra of sunlight. If it had accumulated in the atmosphere, we would have discovered it terrestrially and named it something else!

 

[sour_grapes]

Actually, N2 is a bit LARGER than O2.

Talke a look at this article

Yes, that article you linked to carefully explains that my statement was correct.

I still don't understand the origins of any assertions about the thermal properties vis a vis molecular size. (I do understand that they are not germane to winemaking, so this is just idle chatter.)

 

[Floandgary]

Not so much that Nitrogen possesses a special property, but that when used in place of, in these cases O2, it subverts the effects of the O2. Simple as using liquid N in place of H2O

 

[joeswine]

Gas wars

LIKE I stated the way I use nitrogen is to protect the wine for only a week or so nothing long term in the secondary ,then rack down to what ever vessel that's required, never had a problem .

 

[stickman]

Joeswine, I agree, I use inert gas in the headspace short term when I know I'll be racking in a week or two. I may also use it to fill the receiving vessel headspace during racking, depending on the type of wine or age of the wine etc., if I feel it needs to be protected or not.