I. Origin of the Technical Solution
Helium recovery and purification for the HVAC industry has been under development for over 5 years, with manufacturers negotiating helium purification solutions with air conditioner makers. Several different approaches emerged, including conventional pressure swing adsorption (PSA), temperature swing adsorption (TSA), and more advanced membrane separation. Conventional PSA and TSA equipment tends to be too large, take up too much floor space, and have too low a recovery rate, and its adsorbent requires high-temperature hydrogen regeneration. Membrane separation equipment involves a more complex process and can shorten the service life of the original system’s compressor.
Drawing on more than 20 years of research and industrialization experience from the team and its partners, the company designed and optimized material systems based on two entirely different material classes — high-performance polymer membrane materials and inorganic membrane materials, as well as metal alloys — using material "genetic engineering." This achieved separation of hydrogen from nitrogen and hydrogen from helium, purifying both hydrogen and helium to electronic-grade purity (>99.999%). Team members include veteran semiconductor facilities and gas-plant R&D and management personnel who are familiar with the specialized, demanding impurity requirements of downstream semiconductor-related processes, as well as veterans from semiconductor equipment companies who understand the manufacturing standards and requirements for semiconductor equipment and systems.
RefineTek has the design, manufacturing, and construction capability to produce 5N (99.999%) electronic-grade helium and liquid helium, suitable for cutting-edge fields such as semiconductors, superconductors, MRI, low-temperature physics, and defense. The 2N (99%) purity level corresponds to the first-stage purification process, as shown in Figure 1.
Drawing on past approaches and thorough communication with air conditioner manufacturers to understand their needs, the company developed a helium purification system for the HVAC industry that offers the following advantages over previous approaches: (1) No power infrastructure required, with virtually no operating energy consumption and high stability; (2) Long-lasting core consumables that require no regeneration over their service life; (3) The purification material requires no regeneration, so no high temperature or hydrogen use is needed; (4) No modification to the existing system or production process, with no increase in compressor start/stop cycles; (5) A compact, miniaturized unit with a footprint under 1 square meter; (6) System recovery rate above 95%, significantly higher than the typical 70% of conventional PSA or TSA; (7) The system involves no pressure vessels, requiring no registration or annual inspection; (8) Helium concentration is consistently maintained above 90%, improving the consistency of leak detection.
The specific differences between approaches are shown in Figure 2 below:
II. Equipment Performance
The helium recovery and purification system RefineTek developed for the HVAC industry achieves a very high helium recovery efficiency of over 95%, with detailed performance covering four major parameter categories: inlet feed gas conditions, outlet product gas conditions, outlet tail gas conditions, and system metrics.
It’s worth noting that, in the helium leak-detection step of air conditioner manufacturing, helium loss comes from the natural consumption of leak testing on workpieces, a certain leak rate in the helium recycling system, human operating error, and active venting below a certain concentration (80% or 75%). The helium recovery and purification system essentially recovers this actively vented helium below the threshold concentration, purifying out the air mixed into it. Testing across multiple companies has shown that RefineTek’s helium recovery and purification system can save roughly 40% of total helium consumption.
