OXARC opened the newly constructed Specialty Gas Center in early 1995 at our Pasco, WA location. This facility was custom-designed and constructed to serve the current and future specialty gas needs in the Northwest. The centralized location of our facility enhances our ability to transport and ship our products efficiently.
Quality control is a major issue with our customers. Having complete control of the packaging process allows our Specialty Gas Center to produce the highest quality specialty gases on the West Coast. Quality is achieved by design features and operating procedures that separate specialty gas production from industrial gas production. Separate pumps and vaporizers send gases through stainless steel lines to one of five stainless filling manifolds; one each for pure argon, helium, and oxygen, one for nonflammable mixes, and one for flammable mixes. This unique single-gas service concept means there is never any cross-contamination from a previously filled gas.
Prior to initial filling each cylinder goes through our vacuum/bake-out system. They are baked at a temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit while being vacuumed. Each cylinder must pass stringent maximums of moisture preparing them to accept purities to 99.999%.
After blending, each mixed gas goes to the cylinder roller where it is rolled for up to four hours to achieve a truly homogeneous mixture that will not subsequently stratify.
Each pure gas cylinder is fitted with a special “residual pressure valve” to prevent contamination by moisture, hydrocarbons, and atmosphere that are siphoned back into a cylinder when the valve is left open. Our pure gas cylinders can be filled only on manifolds dedicated to filling cylinders with pressure retention valves.
Cylinders can be mixed by pressure or by weight where smaller components or greater accuracy is required. The Setra gravimetric fill system, available on both the nonflammable and flammable mix manifolds, allows gases to be blended with a sensitivity of 0.2 grams of product.
Flammable gas mixtures of up to four components are filled on a dedicated manifold. Cylinders can be blended by pressure or gravimetrically.
The cornerstone of our analytical lab is an MTI micro gas chromatograph which is twenty times faster and ten times smaller than older chromatographs. This PC-operated GC performs two tests at once and is used for parts per million analysis in the 1 PPM range. It can be used for analyzing mixture components or impurities in pure gases.