Why is Helium so difficult to synthesize?
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Noble gases don’t form molecules with other elements in Earth normal conditions. So you can’t gather it from breaking a molecule through a chemical reaction. You have to catch them as it is in the air.
But unlike other noble gases, helium is lighter than air so it slowly goes up and up and leaves the atmosphere.
It’s unpractical so you need to rely on sealed underground pockets of air. Which is typically how you also gather natural gas so we get helium as a byproduct for natural gas exploitation.
But helium is in a unique spot of useful, not that demanded (compared to hydrocarbures), hard to catch, hard to store (it will leak out of a sealed steel container). While the heavier hydrocarbures are expensive. So often the companies don’t even bother with helium and let it escape.
Helium is extremely common in the lunar regolith so moon mining would give us a virtually endless supply
Noble gases don’t form molecules with other elements in Earth normal conditions. So you can’t gather it from breaking a molecule through a chemical reaction. You have to catch them as it is in the air.
But unlike other noble gases, helium is lighter than air so it slowly goes up and up and leaves the atmosphere.
It’s unpractical so you need to rely on sealed underground pockets of air. Which is typically how you also gather natural gas so we get helium as a byproduct for natural gas exploitation.
But helium is in a unique spot of useful, not that demanded (compared to hydrocarbures), hard to catch, hard to store (it will leak out of a sealed steel container). While the heavier hydrocarbures are expensive. So often the companies don’t even bother with helium and let it escape.
If you think Helium is difficult to synthesize try making gold! All stars produce He from fusion of H over their main life stage, towards the end when the H is running low they start fusing H and He etc etc to make heavier elements, but how much they do so depends on their mass. Gold is towards the end of the list of stable elements. Making it requires massive stars going supernova. Our own sun will never be capable of making gold. At most it’s going to make some nitrogen, carbon and oxygen in its death throws
If you think Helium is difficult to synthesize try making gold! All stars produce He from fusion of H over their main life stage, towards the end when the H is running low they start fusing H and He etc etc to make heavier elements, but how much they do so depends on their mass. Gold is towards the end of the list of stable elements. Making it requires massive stars going supernova. Our own sun will never be capable of making gold. At most it’s going to make some nitrogen, carbon and oxygen in its death throws
If you think Helium is difficult to synthesize try making gold! All stars produce He from fusion of H over their main life stage, towards the end when the H is running low they start fusing H and He etc etc to make heavier elements, but how much they do so depends on their mass. Gold is towards the end of the list of stable elements. Making it requires massive stars going supernova. Our own sun will never be capable of making gold. At most it’s going to make some nitrogen, carbon and oxygen in its death throws
Helium is an element, not a compound. Elements are atoms, the “smallest” building block in chemistry. To create a new element you need to have massive machines to smash them together, with enough force to fuse them together, but not enough to break them apart. Imagine shooting 2 grains of sand at eachother and them fusing into a larger grain of sand. First thet must hit eachother, and then they must fuse into one.
Another problem is that helium is small, and built by 2 protons and 2 neutrons. To be able to make one you need these building blocks. Hydrogen is normally 1 proton. A small fraction is deuterium, and has 1 proton and 1 neutron. You have probably heard about heavy water, this is regular water (2 hydrogen with one oxygen atom) where 1 or both hydrogens have an extra neutron. So you would need first find 2 atoms of hydrogen that has 1 neutron, and then fire them against eachother and hit, then make them fuse in a stable atom, and then hope the impact did not break of one neutron and creating an unstable helium with only 1 neutron.
You can also have tritium, 1 proton and 2 neuteons, but this is unstable and breaks down, releasing gamma and neutrons.
Another way of getting helium is trough decay of unstable heavy elements, like uranium and thorium. This however is a radioactive prosess that also release other elements that can contaminate and are themselves radioactive. You may have heard of alfa, beta and gamma radiation? Alfa radiation is high energy helium atoms shooting off from the broken core.
Chemistry is “easy”, manipulation of atomic mass, not so much.
Helium is an element, not a compound. Elements are atoms, the “smallest” building block in chemistry. To create a new element you need to have massive machines to smash them together, with enough force to fuse them together, but not enough to break them apart. Imagine shooting 2 grains of sand at eachother and them fusing into a larger grain of sand. First thet must hit eachother, and then they must fuse into one.
Another problem is that helium is small, and built by 2 protons and 2 neutrons. To be able to make one you need these building blocks. Hydrogen is normally 1 proton. A small fraction is deuterium, and has 1 proton and 1 neutron. You have probably heard about heavy water, this is regular water (2 hydrogen with one oxygen atom) where 1 or both hydrogens have an extra neutron. So you would need first find 2 atoms of hydrogen that has 1 neutron, and then fire them against eachother and hit, then make them fuse in a stable atom, and then hope the impact did not break of one neutron and creating an unstable helium with only 1 neutron.
You can also have tritium, 1 proton and 2 neuteons, but this is unstable and breaks down, releasing gamma and neutrons.
Another way of getting helium is trough decay of unstable heavy elements, like uranium and thorium. This however is a radioactive prosess that also release other elements that can contaminate and are themselves radioactive. You may have heard of alfa, beta and gamma radiation? Alfa radiation is high energy helium atoms shooting off from the broken core.
Chemistry is “easy”, manipulation of atomic mass, not so much.
Helium is an element, not a compound. Elements are atoms, the “smallest” building block in chemistry. To create a new element you need to have massive machines to smash them together, with enough force to fuse them together, but not enough to break them apart. Imagine shooting 2 grains of sand at eachother and them fusing into a larger grain of sand. First thet must hit eachother, and then they must fuse into one.
Another problem is that helium is small, and built by 2 protons and 2 neutrons. To be able to make one you need these building blocks. Hydrogen is normally 1 proton. A small fraction is deuterium, and has 1 proton and 1 neutron. You have probably heard about heavy water, this is regular water (2 hydrogen with one oxygen atom) where 1 or both hydrogens have an extra neutron. So you would need first find 2 atoms of hydrogen that has 1 neutron, and then fire them against eachother and hit, then make them fuse in a stable atom, and then hope the impact did not break of one neutron and creating an unstable helium with only 1 neutron.
You can also have tritium, 1 proton and 2 neuteons, but this is unstable and breaks down, releasing gamma and neutrons.
Another way of getting helium is trough decay of unstable heavy elements, like uranium and thorium. This however is a radioactive prosess that also release other elements that can contaminate and are themselves radioactive. You may have heard of alfa, beta and gamma radiation? Alfa radiation is high energy helium atoms shooting off from the broken core.
Chemistry is “easy”, manipulation of atomic mass, not so much.
When you synthesize helium it releases dangerous amounts of energy. Hydrogen bombs are basically helium synthesizers.
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