Argon fixes your eyesight and launches satellites into to orbit

Argon (Ar) is a colourless, odourless, tasteless and non-toxic gas.  It was the first noble gas discovered. Like all noble gases, argon has eight electrons in its outer shell. It’s something that atoms otherwise usually strive to get by reacting with other atoms and sharing electrodes. That’s what makes argon so stable. Argon is formed, inter alia, when unstable radioactive potassium falls apart. It can therefore be used to determine the age of minerals and rocks, through so-called potassium argonization.

Applications for argon often utilize its inert properties for protection against the oxidizing effect of air. Argon has a much higher density than air, which makes it an effective shielding gas, often used when nitrogen is too reactive and other noble gases too expensive. Its commonly used in welding, either as pure gas or in a gas mixture, to protect the hot molten metal from contamination by other atmospheric gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and water vapor. Because of the high quality of argon-welded seams, the gas is used to manufacture power generation equipment and fuel tanks for Ariane rockets.

In cutting, pure argon is used at a very high temperature for plasma arc cutting of ferrous and non-ferrous alloys. It improves ionization in arc plasma welding, which is a commonly used method in car and wind turbin production.  It´s used as a protective atmosphere for reactive metals in heat treatment, to avoid nitrogen reaction or where nitrogen needs to be excluded completely.  Serving as a protective atmosphere, argon is common in semiconduction applications e.g for silicon crystal pulling in wafer manufacture. The gas plays an important role as shielding gas in incandescent ligthts, and is an important part of the fluorescent light – giving it a blue shine – and in low energy lamps.

Argon is also used in metal refining, for materials such as high-grade steel, aluminium or titanium.  It´s there used for degassing and stirring to prevent oxidation, ensure evenly heated melts and exact composition specification as well as reduce chrome loss in high-grade steel manufacturing. Another area of use is inerting and purging of storage vessels and pipelines in chemicals and pharmaceutical plants. In addition, argon is often used in food industries, especially as packaging gas. Because heavy argon penetrates oxygen and humid air in the packaging, the food stays fresh longer. Its used for the same reason when storing wine in barrels.

In the field of medical care, liquid argon is used to destroy cancer cells. It also plays an important role in excimer lasers, a technology that has revolutionised eye surgery. It´s a quick and highly effective method of treating distorted vision or far and near-sightedness. An ultraviolet light beam is used to destroy unwanted tissue. A mixture of noble gases is used as the laser medium, and the purity of these gases is critical for the laser performance. Typically, the laser gas consists of 0.05-0.3 percent reactive gas halogen (fluorine or hydrogen chloride), 1-10 percent noble gas (argon, krypton or xenon) and 90-99 percent buffer gas (helium or neon). Excimer lasers are also used in the electronics industry, in microlithography processes for electronic circuits, to manufacture mobile phone displays and drill microscopic holes in the nozzles of inkjet printers.