ESCO Starts Liquid Argon Production

Esfahan Steel Company has started the production of pure liquid argon, announced ESCO’s head of Energy Management Department, Hassan Khazaei, on Tuesday. According to Khazaei, the production of a ton of liquid argon can provide ESCO with $2.5 million of value-added on basic, unprocessed argon, ILNA reported. Argon is mostly used as an inert shielding gas in welding and other high-temperature industrial processes where ordinarily non-reactive substances become reactive. For example, an argon atmosphere is used in graphite electric furnaces to prevent the graphite from burning.