Such is its abundance and properties, nitrogen is a key product throughout various markets and applications. Steelmaking and metal cutting, food processing and freezing, pulp and paper processing, glassmaking, oxyfuel combustion applications, medical procedures, and electronics manufacture all rely on nitrogen in some form or capacity.
Whether it’s for its unique properties in blanketing and inerting applications, or its use as a refrigerant in the grinding of plastics and freezing of food products, the role of nitrogen is essential.
A core end-use of nitrogen is in the oilfield, an application that has never been more prominent. Since the shale oil and gas boom, hydraulic fracturing has spiked – with revived and new interest in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) involving either nitrogen or carbon dioxide (CO2). This is nowhere more relevant than in the US, where the ‘shale gale’ has been blowing through the country’s energy sector in recent years.
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