Reporting on the business and technologies
driving today's global industrial gas industry

The United States is one of the most important regions for global sales of industrial gases and related equipment and technologies. The economic crisis that began in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2008 affected the US industrial gas sectors in different ways. Large market segments, like steel and chemicals, took a deep dive. Sectors like healthcare and food, however, remained somewhat stable as they service basic human needs that are often recession resistant. Other segments, like energy and the environment, held some momentum based on widespread global interest. By the fourth quarter of 2009, improvement in manufacturing, a turn in inventory cycles, gradually stabilizing retail sales, some return of customer confidence, and firmer housing markets, were helping to turn the crisis around. In the US, this strengthening trend continues into the first half of 2010.

This article presents an economic and industrial gas industry business summary for the year 2009, and takes a look at encouraging first quarter 2010 results. Readers of Mr. Pelitti\'s business reports will recall that the Latin American Region had enjoyed six consecutive years of growth. While as a decrease of 1.8 percent in 2009 — as a consequence of the international crisis that began in 2008 — Pelitti is able to report that today the situation is improving, and the Latin American region is back on a growth track.

With the advent of summer, our thoughts turn to pleasant weather, some time off, and an idyllic place to enjoy that free time — like a trip to a farm. Today, there is more going on alongside the cows, corn, and rolling pastures than meets the untrained eye. It seems innovation is brewing in the barnyard, where waste is being turned into energy. While carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas produced by humans, methane is far more toxic to the ozone layer. And boy, are those animals full of... methane.

One line of defense for environmental scientists has been to study ways to make cows and other animals produce less methane through better diets and genetics. Others see, among all those gases and emissions floating around, that there exists a considerable amount of potential for fuel sources. The strategy is one that is well-suited to less developed nations as it addresses many issues related to farming, greenhouse emissions, and the power needed to confront these challenges.

The MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) sponsors a series of colloquia to showcase areas of critical energy research and analysis in hopes of mitigating foreseeable upcoming energy challenges. This article is a summary of a seminar presented by Bruce E. Dale PhD, a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Michigan State University. Professor Dale\'s interest lies in converting plant matter to cellulosic biofuel, chemicals, and materials. Dale advocates making informed and rational choices among alternative energy options by establishing key metrics used to compare energy alternatives as well as encourage collaborative efforts among farmers, biofuel producers, government agencies, and environmental grouops.

Growth in the electronics materials market in 2009 was negatively impacted by the performance of the global semiconductor and photovoltaics market and the downturn in the global economy. The electronics platform continues to remain one of the most profitable for our industry, despite the impacts of the recent economic slowdown. By strategically positioning themselves in the electronics market and investing in R&D, industrial gas industry players now supply the newest materials and equipment to the world\'s largest facilities that produce advanced IC and PV cell technology. With improving consumer confidence and signs of economic recovery around the world, the semiconductor industry is well positioned for growth in 2010.

As suppliers to the semiconductor industry, we have grown accustomed to the relentless pursuit of miniaturization. Moore\'s law has described the technological advances of the semiconductor industry with the now empirical reality that semiconductor chips will double in capacity every two years. Material science will continue to play an important role in the electronics industry as the main players addrss the challenges of delivering to consumers the smaller, faster services they demand.

With rapid expansion in manufacturing capcity has come significant technology development - most notably the development of thin film photovoltaics. In thin film silicon PV cell technology, PV cells are formed by growing the active layers of silicon or other semiconducting materials on lower-cost substrates such as glass or metal foils. This has opened up the prospects of both significant reductions in cost base as well as increases in manufacturing scale. While multiple thin film technologies exist, this article addresses the technology that presents the greatest challenges to the gas supplier - thin film Si.

The semiconductor, Light Emitting Diode (LED), and solar industries represent three of the fastest paced, cutting-edge worldwide markets that Matheson Tri-Gas serves. Rapidly changing supply chain requirements, coupled with fiercely competitive pressures on price and delivery are just some of the challenges we must deal with on a daily basis. Globalization of the customer base -- as well as the competition -- is yet another challenge. Matheson, and its parent company TNSC, have a global and unwavering commitment to the electronics market -- a commitment that is both rooted in the history of this business and dedicated to its future.

Most users of iPhones, iPads, and other wireless technology hardly imagine that gases are critical to the manufacture of the tiny chips that operate their devices. But, ultra-pure hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen (H₂), and nitrogen (N₂), all play vital roles in the manufacture of super-fast, low-temperature, lower power consuming, telecommunications chips. Underscore \"pure\" because the process of manufacturing tiny chips itself -- a derivative of traditional epitaxy -- actually invites contamination in an unexpected fashion.

Fred H. Siemer, CFA, is President of Siemer Management Co. and has over 25 years of experience in the Chemical and Investment Industries. He established \"Chemical Research for Wall St.\" in 1985. In this months column, he comments on the economic overview, industrial gas performance, and comments on leading gas companies\' recent finances.

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) describes a process by charting the materials and information flow of a product or service along a value chain. Part of Lean Thinking, VSM is a business practice that aims to eliminate waste. This process was described previously in \"Value Stream Mapping - Putting Your Process to Work\" (CGI, March 2010). This article picks up where I left off in March and introduces the practice of brainstorming.

With the on-going political discussion of carbon cap-and-trade, sequestration, and other environmental initiatives, Cool Clean Technologies, Inc. (www.coolclean.com) has witnessed confustion among its customers that are considering the purchase of carbon dioxide-based equipment for cleaning, cooling, and extraction applications. In this article, Jon Wilkstrom explains that more often than not, end users receive recycled carbon dioxide that would otherwise have gone directly into the atmosphere, this article explains in detail some of the uses of recycled carbon dioxide.

Lives have been lost and equipment ruined due to the lack of training and/or information on CO₂ safety and the proper methods of operating CO₂ equipment.  This article gives seven basic tools to know that can prevent serious life threatening accidents as well as eight basic tools that can be implemented to prevent damage to equipment.

Going green requires greenbacks, often lots of them. Are eco-green solutions and eco-green economics mutually exclusive? Given good ingenuity and common sense, surely we can have our green eggs and ham. In this article Keith Hall examines the growing demand for CO₂ in the petroleum industry with descriptions of the methods and technologies that use this product to produce oil and gas.

The future of ethanol production in the US is from cellulosic- and algae-based feedstock facilities. By-product CO₂ from these plants will be a target of sequestration projects, used as feedstock for liquid merchant CO₂ plants, and used in industrial processes such as enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and coal bed methane (CBM) projects.

Sam A. Rushing is President of Advanced Cryogenics, Ltd. (www.carbondioxideconsultants.com), a CO₂ and cryogenic gas consulting firm, based in Tavernier, FL.

In this section, we look at how industrial gas companies are working with scientists on projects that examine carbon dioxide levels in the Earth\'s atmosphere. Puzzling through the relationship between greenhouse gases and climate change relies on our ability to measure and monitor these gases, especially carbon dioxide. Today, CO₂ measurements are being derived by examining the ice in polar regions, which captures and stores greenhouse gases and their related markers, thus providing a historic record of emissions. CO₂ is also being monitored from space via satellites

Carbon Dioxide is one of the industrial gas industry\'s largest and most well-established markets. As such, our industry is at the forefront of research and development on ways to capture, store, transport, recycle, and use this product, which is notably \"bad\" for the atmosphere but \"good\" for many other things, like freezing, beverage carbonation, and enhanced oil recovery efforts. The industrial gas industry also has deep roots in oxygen systems that enable more efficient combustion, gasification, and other applications that help limit CO₂ emissions. For this month\'s Carbon Doxide Issue, we invited Air Liquide, Air Products, and Praxair to describe their involvement in applications and technologies that curb carbon dioxide emissions.

Within the US merchant carbon dioxide market, changes to patterns in CO₂ sourcing and changes in demand regionally, continued to reshape the business in 2009 as they have over the past five-plus years. Environmental concerns and proposed carbon trading schemes have led many energy producers to evaluate the feasibility of recovering CO₂ from gasification processes for environmental reasons and monetizing the recovered CO₂ by selling it into the EOR market to recoup investment costs.

The industrial gas industry supplies gases and equipment to both traditional fossil fuel markets and alternative fuel markets, including hydrogen, and sees energy as a major growth platform. This month we look at how renewable and alternative fuels - specifically wind, solar, biomass, and nuclear - are increasing market opportunities for suppliers of industrial gases and their related technologies.

The hydrogen market is defined by two distinct segments: the large scale On-site/Pipeline (OSP) market and Merchant market. Each segment has unique market drivers and economics of hydrogen supply. In 2009, hydrogen sales to both OSP and Merchant markets were influenced by the worldwide recession. As the economy recovers, and as oil prices move up and new carbon-capture mandates kick-in, the hydrogen industry expects projects to grow, increasing the size of the hydrogen market by upwards of 15 percent per year over the next five years.

Patrick Serfass is Vice President of The National Hydrogen Association. He writes that in the next 20 years, small improvements in several different cars and fuels are expected to help reduce our reliance on oil and improve the environment, but not significantly. In the next 100 years, we need to develop other alternative fuel technologies and infrastructure, scalable to the mass market, in order to make meaningful progress in economic, environmental, and energy security areas.

Hydroge, like any other fuel, has unique characteristics which must be understood fully in order to develop protocols, codes, and standards for its safe use -- especially as hydrogen\'s use extends to the general public. SRI has been conducting research on behalf of the US Department of Energy and industry clients for the past decade. These experiments --- along with SRI\'s other safety related work --- can enable the safe use of hydrogen and hasten the arrival of a true hydrogen economy.

Fred Siemer is President of Siemer Management Co. and has over 25 years of experience in the Chemical and Investment industries. He established \"chemical Research for Wall St.\" in 1985. In the March issue, he filed his fourth quarter report for the major industrial gas players. The following companies reported for 4Q and the year 2009 after the March issue\'s publishing deadline.

Claus Emmer is LNG Systems International Sales Manager at Chart Inc. In this article he addresses the challenges faced in transporting energy. Particularly natural gases. Emmer provides fuel supply chains as well as the benefits/hurdles of using LNG or CNG fuels over conventional fuels.

Ed Kiczek is Global Business Director for Hydrogen Energy Systems at Air Products. Air Products, a leader in the supply of refinery hydrogen, is also a leader in the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier for alternative fuels. In this article, Kiczek divulges the advantages and hurdles of using hydrogen fueling in the material handling sector.

For nearly a century, catalyst-impregnated ceramic pellet media has driven Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) reactions in hydrogen plants. Catacel Corporation (Garrettsville, Ohio) (www.catacel.com) has tested and perfected a new higher performance alternative - the Stackable Structural Reactor (SSR^®). The specific benefits derived from Catacel\'s SSR technology are observable and quantifiable throughout three major hydrogen plant applications.

The transportation of merchant gases to customers is a complex process and requires a variety of highly specialized and expenive cryogenic or high-pressure delivery equipment. In this article, we focus on new developments and trends that are improving the components of merchant gas supply.

Moving your business to the next level can feel like jumping off a cliff - you know you need to make a leap, but you are not sure where you will land. With a clear vision of your goal and the appropriate commitment, resources, and partners, you can make the leap with greater confidence. In this article CryoGas International interviews CeeKay Manager Dave Healzer, Owner and CEO Tom Dunn, President Ned Lane, and TrakAbout President and COO Tim Fusco, and TECSYS Director of Product Management Marie Fournier, about the evolution of their relationship when Cee Kay Supply Inc. needed to make a leap.

One technique that evaluates processes so that their efficiency can be measured and improved is called Value Stream Mapping (VSM). With VSM, the flow of materials and information that are required to bring a product or service to a customer is analyzed by looking at a \"value chain.\" Paul Matlock has been involved in numerous VSM projects in the industrial and compressed gas industry, both as a participant and as a facilitator. As a process, VSM enables and sustains change and is an imortant way to make continuous improvements in a company. This article presents a step-by-step overview of the Map Development Process, a basic tool in VSM.

In  this article, Uemori explains the load indicator tool for weighing bulk gas deliveries, and how it improves on the necessary step of measurement.

CEFRANK, a company specializing in MCPs, has developed an MCP that solves many of the logistical concerns associated with design and operations. This article explains the advantages of this improvement.

Mr. Siemer is President of Siemer Management Co. and has over 25 years of experience in the Chemical and investment Industries. Here, he comments on recent market changes (or lack of) for selected major gas companies.

Stephen Harrison is Global Head of Specialty Gases & Specialty Equipment, Linde Gases. In this article, he writes on evolving requirements for reducing air poluttion emissions, as an intricate mix of limits, targets, and caps becomes more stringent. This article coveres initiatives from around the world, emission monitoring trends, as well as technology for emissions monitoring and detection.

In the coming decade and beyond, the landscape for emissions measurements and environemental markets will be dominated by four major topics; climate change policy and legislation, process monitoring for compliance, the advent of carbon capture and sequestration, and energy policy.  All will greatly impact the nature of emissions markets. This national and international agenda presents enormous opportunities as well as challenges for Air Liquide and other gas companies.

With the upcoming changes in the CFR 40 Part 75 (Acid Rain), the new Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT), and the reporting and potential national trading of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, measuring pollutants with accuracy becomes more important than ever before. This article covers challenges involved in taking accurate measurements.

Companies that are large sources of greenhouse gas emissions are now required to report emissions to the US Environmental Protection Agency. This article discusses some new regulations, and how Matheson Tri-Gas has complied with them.

Growing populations and urban density are putting pressure on available water supply, leading communities to have to use more contaminated water sources. In addition, there has been a rise in detectable levels of undesirable microconstituents in water. these factors are driving communitites toward advanced methods of water treatment. Consequently, ozone use in drinking water and water reclamation has increased significantly over the past several years. Air Products introduces a product helpful in treating highly contaminated water.

Municipal solid waste landfills are the second largest source of human-generated methane emissions in the US, accounting for approximately 23 percent of these emissions in 2007. Methane is a greenhouse gas which contributes to smog and health hazards. In recent years, technology has enabled us to harness these emissions and turn them into a source of renewable clean energy.  In this article, Alice Austin defines the gas, process, and benefits of harnessing this technology.

Bill Davis founded Ze-gen in 2004 to develop a technological solution to reduce the landfilling of materials by converting waste to a clean form of energy. In this Article Gideon Gradman describes a brief history of the company and further explains the process and opportunity provided by this Company\'s advanced technology.

Sludge management can reach 40 percent of the total management costs for a wastewater plant today, making sludge disposal an increasingly critical issue. In this article, Praxair explains a patent pending process they\'ve developed which can reduce sludge.

This report examines the financial results for the major players in the Latin American Region up to September of 2009. Business in Latin America, similar to the rest of the world, showed the effects of the reduced economic activity that followed the worldwide economic crisis that began in 2008. Fortunately, Latin America economic recovery began earlier than other world regions, led by the Region\'s largest economy, Brazil.

The industrial, medical, and specialty gases industry operates on a global scale and is intricately linked to world markets. In 2008, the worldwide economy realized real growth of 1.3 percent; in 2009 that growth is expected to slow an estimated -0.7 percent. Today, the global economy appears to be expanding, pulled along by the strong performance of Asian economies and stabilized-to-modest recovery elsewhere. Helping this recovery are various non-standard measures ( like the US stimulus package) that have been introduced since October 2008 in an effort to manage the economic crisis. The pace of recovery, however is slow, and economic activity remains far below pre-recession levels.

keeping tabs on the latest develpments and trends in the worldwide industrial, medical, and specialty gas business is what we do at CryoGas International. This is a broad asssignment and involves tracking over 20 global market segments. For 2010, we see a world working on economic recovery, pushing for a cleaner planet, and continuing its quest for more energy - energy that is both environmentally friendly and affordable. All three efforts have bearing on industrial gas markets and their related technologies and equipment. With so many opoprtunities on the horizon, CryoGas decided to make note of the most promising trends coming down the pike. Here are our selections for 2010.

In September of 2006 Linde and The BOC Group came together to form The Linde Group, creating one of the largest industrial gas companies in the world. With the integration of these two world-class companies well underway, Linde introduced High Performance Organization (HPO), a program designed to achieve sustainable improvements in process efficiency to drive the Group\'s performance going forward. CryoGas International invited Alan Watkins, Head of Merchant and Packaged Gases for The Linde Group, to discuss his unit, industry trends, and Linde\'s outlook for new and emerging gas markets.

The industrial gases industry could not be called a glamorous industry by any stretch of the imagination. It is safe to say workplace discussions around the water cooler are more apt to fall on innovative hydrogen fuel cells rather than plumping and altering skin cells, adding to existing pipelines rather than controlling expanding waistlines, and the latest welding lasers rather than the newest eye laser. As you might have surmised, the less familiar terms you\'ve just come across are the lexicon of the cosmetics and dermatologic surgery industry. But increasingly, they are becoming familiar to those who work in the medical and specialty gases industry - and perhaps more familiar to some of you than you might care to admit!

The persuit of reduced emissions, lower energy consumption, and increased productivity in manufacturing has put process technologies in the forefront of research and development initiatives around the world. For industrial gas companies and their related technology providers and partners, this represents economic opportunity. Improved systems and efficiencies often drive the intensity of industrial gas use, particularly in new or improved gasification schemes. In this article, Foster Wheeler describes how \"clean coal\" is driving changes in process technology markets.

Chart Industries, Inc. makes equipment that is used throughout the global liquid gas supply chain for a wide variety of cryogenic and heat-transfer applications. Cochran, Curtis, and Neeser provided CryoGas International with this company profile which touches on the history, organization, and future of the Company.

The persuit of reduced emissions, lower energy consuption, and increased productivity in manufacturing and transportation has put process technologies in the forefront of research and development initiatives around the world. For industrial gas companies and their related technology providers and partners, this represents economic opportunity. In this article, Air Products describes its experience with hydrogen compressed natural gas (HCNG) fueling technology, which is viewed by many as the \"bridge\" to establishing a true hydrogen economy.

Hydrogen chloride (HCl), an important specialty gas, forms hydrochloric acid, when it comes in contact with water. HCl is also known as Anhydrous Hydrogen Chloride (AHCl) — meaning water-free. AHCl is used where water-free conditions are desired. HCl and AHCl are used to produce vinyl and alkyl chlorides, pharmaceuticals, and in the semiconductor industry for etching semiconductor crystals and purifying silicon via SiHCl3. It is also used to treat common cotton to de-lint it and for small scale laboratory work where the gas is available in cylinders.

Recently, several market factors have created supply uncertainty and dramatic swings in the cost of this product. This article examines how HCl is produced and distributed, and then looks at the factors impacting supply today.

The pursuit of increased productivity in manufacturing has put process technologies in the forefront of company initiatives. for industrial gas companies and their related technology providers and partners, this represents economic opportunity as improved systems and efficiencies drive productivity and profits. In this article, Gas & Air Systems of Hellertown, PA, which sells and services process gas compressors and compressor systems around the world, describes the importance of maintaining plant equipment has to your bottom line.