Helium – Critical Asset, Containment Challenge

  
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Helium’s unique physical properties make it indispensable across a broad spectrum of advanced technologies. Its applications extend from MRI systems, cryogenics, semiconductors and satellite systems to fibre optics, airships and technical textiles. Due to its inert nature, low atomic mass and exceptionally small molecular diameter, helium is widely utilised in both barrier performance testing and as a tracer gas in high-precision leak detection protocols.

However, these same properties also make helium highly permeable through most materials, including metals, polymers, composites and seals. Its high diffusivity and kinetic energy enable it to migrate rapidly through microstructural voids and material matrices, resulting in significant potential for unintended loss.

To address this, Versaperm offers a technically advanced suite of permeability measurement instrumentation specifically optimised for helium and other gases. The company’s helium vapour permeability meter delivers highly repeatable measurements with sensitivities extending from parts per million (PPM) down to parts per billion (PPB). The company also supplies a mass spectrometer-based version, capable of quantifying vapour transmission rates for virtually all non-restricted gases and gas blends, including under dynamic test conditions.
Both platforms provide high-resolution measurements across a wide envelope of pressures, partial pressures, temperatures and humidity profiles and can operate within supercritical regimes. This enables characterisation of materials and assemblies under conditions replicating operational environments – a key requirement for sectors such as aerospace, medical devices, defence and energy.

Versaperm systems support testing of both planar specimens and fully assembled components, including complex multi-layer laminates, polymers, composites, elastomeric seals and encapsulated products. This facilitates detailed analysis of barrier performance at the material and system level, allowing engineers and designers to optimise containment strategies during both R&D and QA/QC stages.

With the global helium supply chain increasingly volatile due to geopolitical, geological and economic factors, helium conservation has become an operational imperative. Efficient containment and minimised permeation not only reduce losses but also contribute to cost control and environmental stewardship.
In addition to manufacturing and supplying precision instrumentation to research institutes, National Standards organisations and commercial clients worldwide, Versaperm also provides a comprehensive laboratory testing and permeability consultancy service. This allows clients to outsource complex measurements, validate new materials or troubleshoot existing designs with expert technical support.

ENDS

Please send any sales enquiries to Christopher Roberts, Versaperm Limited,,
10 Rawcliffe House, Howarth Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 1AP, UK, Tel: +44 (0) 1628 777668,
e.mail info@versaperm.co.uk Web http://www.versaperm.co.uk

For further Press Information please contact Gerry Palmer @
T the Palmer & Rose Partnership.
Tel +44 (0) 1494 637499, e.mail gerry@palmer-rose.co.uk.