From Cylinders and Dewars to Bulk Supplies
Nitrogen (N2) is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic and almost totally inert gas. It is produced in high volumes at air separation plants. A second purification process may be necessary if very high purity levels are required. Membrane techniques can also be used to recover nitrogen in lower purities. Pressure swing adsorption (PSA) techniques are suited to medium-to-high purities.
Nitrogen has many different uses across a broad application spectrum. Due to its inert nature, one of the main use cases is blanketing, purging and sparging in the food and chemical industries. It can also be found in modified atmosphere packages (MAP) for foodstuffs. In liquid form, it is an agent to shock-freeze food, store biological material, perform cryosurgery and cryogenically grind plastics and rubbers, for instance.
