| Industrial Gases Overview |  |
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The global market for industrial gases had experienced $29 billion in sales 1996 and reached a whopping $41 billion by the year 2003. It is expected to be around $52 billion by early 2008. The growth is pegged at an average rate of 7.5 percent per annum. Predominantly, this growth will be spurred by two factors. Firstly as the manufacturing sector is rising up to produce products that are environmentally clean, this in turn is increasing the use of industrial gases. Secondly for constant upgradation of the increasing supplies of heavy crude oil. In the early 2000s combined sales of Nitrogen and oxygen accounted for approximately 41 percent of the industry's sales.
Diagram showing the global market demand for the Industrial Gases (in million $):
Industrial gases play a crucial role in virtually all the major industries, from agriculture, mining, oil and gas, to motor vehicles, food and chemical products. These industries, all of which in varying degrees rely on industrial gases to produce their final products or services, account for more than $9 trillion of the total global GDP. In other words, industrial gases and related systems and technologies service more than 50% of the entire global economy in one way or another. The Industrial Gas industry may be divided into three type of Segments.
Structure of the Industrial Gas Industry:
There could be three types of categories in the Industrial gas Industry depending on the requirement of the customers. They are the following:
- Tonnage or supply scheme: Here the market, is primarily composed of bulk-volume users who usually gets gases through the medium of direct pipeline from an on-site production plant.
- Merchant or the bulk liquid market: Here the customers generally have fluctuating demands or operate several facilities in multiple locations.
- Cylinder gas deliveries: This is the third, but much smaller compared to the above in garnering market share. Cylinder gas deliveries consists of gas shipments in trucks and limited to costly gases and mixtures.
The industrial gas sector is different from other types of manufacturing process because its raw materials are basically extracted from atmosphere. Primarily the gas industry employs three major techniques for separating gases from the atmosphere. Out of these Cryogenic methods are the traditional and most popular. Cryogenic separation depends on cooling aswell as pressurizing the air till it becomes liquid. For example, Oxygen, at a pressure of around 80 pounds per square inch, will liquify at (-) 274 degrees of Fahrenheit whereas nitrogen gets liquified at a more colder temperature.
The Two prominent non-cryogenic methods of gas production methods are Pressure Swing Adsorption(PSA) and Membrane separation. Membrane Separation technique uses hollow fibers, comprised of organic polymers, to recover say, hydrogen from oil refineries. Pressure swing adsorption (PSA) depends on a molecular sieve material that has the capacity to selectively absorb atmospheric components at a given temperature and pressure.
Application Of Industrial Gases:
Hydrogen and Oxygen are two very important categories of industrial gases. They are used in a broad range of industries. The following table tries to briefly summarise the diverse application of these two gases:
| MARKET | HYDROGEN | OXYGEN |
| Metals | Generally mixed with inert gases to obtain a reducing atmosphere | For enhancing combustion temperatures in industrial process |
| Chemicals, pharmaceuticals & petroleum | For Feedstock; purification | Feedstock; combustion enhancer; catalysis enhancer |
| Pulp and paper | Bleaching agent (replaces chlorine); combustion enhancer | |
| Health care | As an aid in Respiration | |
| Environmental | Enhances biological waste treatments; As an replacement for chlorine | |
| Aquaculture | To increase oxygen content of water and increasing yields of fish | |
| Breathing apparatus | Breathing apparatus | |
| Fitting and turning | Aluminium welding; underwater welding and cutting | Can be combined with fuel gas for welding, gas cutting etc |
| Electricity generation | Coolant for generators; protective atmosphere for the nuclear fuel rod fabrication | Oxy-Fuel Combustion, Gasification |
| Semiconductor manufacture | As a carrier gas for active trace elements | |
| Rockets | Fuel | Fuel |
| Food and beverages | Unsaturated fatty acid hydrogenator |