NATURAL EFFICIENCY

Gases help reduce the extent to which production processes affect our environment, whereby the widely discussed CO₂ offers particularly interesting possibilities.

Many industrial production operations generate process water. To clean it and enable its reuse, it is treated with carbon dioxide (CO₂). Liquid CO₂ reacts like a mild acid but does not increase the water’s salt content. Municipal water treatment plants often use oxygen to intensify the water’s natural biological cleansing process.

When recycling refrigerators that contain CFCs, a process using carbon dioxide liquefies the climate-damaging propellant and then helps collect it to prevent it from being released into the atmosphere. And gases also exhibit their natural strengths in exhaust air purification and waste treatment processes.