Food & Beverage

Without the aid of atmospheric gases, beverages would be flat, transporting food would be extremely difficult, shelf life would be minimal, and food producers and distributors would have expensive disposal costs. Carbon dioxide and nitrogen play significant roles in food preservation and transportation. Both gases, sometimes used in a mixture, prevent oxygen exposure (which causes unhealthy compounds, unpleasant tastes, and odors) by displacing oxygen in food packaging. Nitrogen improves freezing and refrigeration techniques, and dry ice (frozen CO2) keeps food cold and prevents insect infestation in grains and farm products. Argon is another commonly used gas, as it’s inert and displaces oxygen.

Carbon Dioxide

Perhaps one of carbon dioxide’s best-known uses is as a carbonation method for soft drinks, seltzer water, and beer. Carbonation is not its only purpose, as it also maintains the fresh taste and color throughout production, transfer, storage, and bottling. Beverage companies rely on it to create bubbles, but also to move products between tanks or kegs and cans. Carbon dioxide prevents unwanted oxidation and premature fermentation at breweries and wineries.

Food distributors use dry ice for transportation, as it turns from solid to gas, without liquifying. This sublimination prevents water and residue from accumulating. These dry ice blocks are sanitary, food-grade and FDA approved. Commercial kitchens regularly use dry ice to refrigerate, flash freeze, and store dry goods.

Nitrogen

Modified Atmospheric Packaging (MAP), also known as reduced oxygen packaging, is a blend of carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen that is used to preserve fresh produce, for sparging and brewing applications, for blanketing and purging after packaging, and protection against oxidation.

Moisture inside of packaged food invites unwanted bacteria, mold, and mildew, which is why nitrogen is used to displace oxygen and lock out moisture. More nitrogen is necessary for fresh foods like fruits and vegetables, seafood, meat, and meat products. Dried goods, such as honey and rice, require less nitrogen for packaging.

Nitrogen is also used as a carbonator in specialty beverages, as it produces a different type of carbonation than carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is 50 times more soluble in water than nitrogen, creating larger bubbles for extra fizziness. Nitrogen produces less aggressive bubbles for a finer taste. It’s used for nitro brew coffee, kombucha and teas, and some craft beers.

Argon

Argon is used in the beverage industry to displace oxygen in spaces as small as a bottle and as large as a barrel. That little burst of rising steam when a cork is popped off a bottle of wine is created courtesy of argon. Any area of a wine bottle or barrel that is not filled with liquid is occupied by some form of gas to lock in freshness during storage. A drop of the inert gas is placed in the headspace before the cork seals the bottle, displacing oxygen and maintaining the wine’s freshness.

Rocky Mountain Air strives for flawless execution when providing food and beverage grade gases for your business. Gases and related equipment for food preservation and refrigeration are available for delivery. RMA serves manufacturing and packaging facilities, breweries, bottlers, and restaurants. We get products to you quickly, so that you can keep the production lines moving, make deliveries on time, and keep the beverages flowing. Contact your local branch today. We look forward to serving you with flawless dependability!

More information by Gas type:

Carbon Dioxide

Helium

Mixed Gases

Nitrogen

Specialty Gases

Dry Ice

CO2

Carbon Dioxide

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a colorless, odorless gas that naturally occurs in the earth’s atmosphere. It is a dense inert gas that, when combined with argon, is used as a shielding gas in the welding process. Uses for carbon dioxide also include controlling pH levels in paper manufacturing and wastewater treatment and increasing yields in cultivation through the acceleration of natural cycles of photosynthesis.

Greenhouse gas emissions are an environmental concern. Carbon removal initiatives, such as direct air capture, extract carbon dioxide from the air and funnel it to be stored or reused by various industries. Green dry cleaning, with carbon dioxide, is environmentally friendly and replaces toxic cleaning solvents and chemicals like perchloroethylene and chlorine-based mixtures.

In its solid form, carbon dioxide is manufactured into small pellets for dry ice blasting, miraculously blowing away soot, smoke, paint, and excess buildup from coffee roasting machines and commercial kitchen appliances. Dry ice is made when cryogenic carbon dioxide is injected into a holding tank where it can be frozen to its desired temperature of -109 degrees Fahrenheit. Cleaning with carbon dioxide gas applications – both liquid and solid – can, realistically, be an environmentally friendly alternative to cleaning applications that use harsh chemicals that contaminate natural bodies of water through wastewater runoff.

Carbon Dioxide plays a significant role in food preservation and transport. Food distributors use dry ice for transportation, as it turns from solid to gas, without liquifying. This sublimination prevents water and residue from accumulating. These blocks are sanitary, food-grade and FDA approved. Beverage companies rely on it to create bubbles, but also to move product between tanks or to kegs and cans. Carbon Dioxide maintains beverage freshness, taste and color and prevents unwanted oxidation and premature fermentation at breweries and wineries.

Carbon dioxide supplies through RMA are offered in a variety of sizes for a variety of systems.

 

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Helium

Helium

RMA provides helium (He) for a variety of uses in whatever purity needed. We provide high-pressure gas cylinder and liquid cylinder containers large enough to cool a particle collider or an MRI magnet, and small enough to use for balloons at your next party.

The inert gas can chill temperatures to near absolute zero. Various usages include: pressurizing and leak detection; balloon inflation; fiber optics; and glass production. Helium, however, is more than balloons, but operates within medical, technology, manufacturing, and aerospace industries. Helium is often mixed with other gases, like oxygen, in treatments for respiratory ailments like asthma and emphysema, and breathing cylinders for deep sea dives.

Where is helium found and how is it harvested? Helium is a component of natural gas production and is found within subterranean reserves in places rich in oil like Wyoming, Algeria, Qatar, and Russia. As a non-renewable resource, the helium market frequently undergoes global shortages that disrupt its essential industry applications. Partnering with a helium supplier like RMA can ensure that you have the supplies of helium gas that you need when you need it. Our dedication to flawless dependability prioritizes our partners when shortages arise.

 

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Mixed Gases

Mixed gases are a wide and diverse group of products developed for use in specific industries for customized applications. A gas mixture is defined in a molar gas fraction, by percentage, parts per thousand or parts per million. Though gas mixtures are used in many industries, these are common applications in the medical, food and beverage, and welding industries.

 

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Gas blends tailored for your needs and industry

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Nitrogen

Nitrogen (N), a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas, is the most common element in our atmosphere at 78%. It’s a component of all living matter, including water, soil, plants, and the human body. It accounts for about 3% of human body weight. Nitrogen has many useful applications in both its gas and liquid forms. One fun fact about nitrogen is that it’s responsible for the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights’ purple color! When solar wind stimulates nitrogen atoms, the result is the purple and blue-colored lights emitted when the atoms decay.

Nitrogen is unique in that it can be used to prevent fires, but is also used to make explosives. In its natural state, Nitrogen is inert. However, if isolated or harnessed (as in the case of making explosives), it can release a large amount of energy. On the other hand, Nitrogen fights potential fire hazards by eliminating one point in the fire triangle. As a purging gas, its inert nature is denser than oxygen. By removing oxygen, with only heat and fuel remaining, nitrogen eliminates fire’s ability to ignite and thrive.

Rocky Mountain Air is a certified distributor of high purity nitrogen. Specialty gas impurities are analyzed with advanced equipment – the most common being gas chromatographs ¬– at our Salt Lake City plant in concordance with our PurityPlus specialty gas partnership. PurityPlus partnerships certify that we are selling the highest-grade product, and that products will be delivered whenever you need them. This partnership aligns directly with Rocky Mountain Air’s promise to deliver flawless dependability to our customers. Contact your local branch to learn more about PurityPlus specialty gases, or to order a certified mixture today.

 

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Specialty Gases

In addition to elemental gases, Rocky Mountain Air Solutions ® manufactures and delivers PurityPlus™ specialty gases. A specialty gas is a blend of any two or more gases prepared by a lab technician in concordance with a customer’s recommendation. In 2016, Rocky Mountain Air installed a state-of-the-art specialty gas lab in our Salt Lake City production facility. We are a certified PurityPlus™ provider with trained personnel to meet your sophisticated gas requirements. These gas blends require mixing based on specific calibration standards, lab analysis, and certification of the precise composition of contents. Certification includes testing of analysis, compliance, and conformance by a certified lab technician. Specialty gases are manufactured in small quantities for a variety of industries — welding, food packaging, laser applications, university lab testing, and more. Our stringent operational procedures establish the high quality our customers expect, regardless of industry.

Each lab technician must ask questions upon blending and analyzing specialty gas mixtures, such as:

  • What are the blend tolerances?
  • What are the component gases?
  • What is the mixture composition?
  • What is the mixture grade?
  • Which type of cylinder does the specialty gas need to be packaged in?
  • Are there any impurities?
  • Does this cylinder require special certification based on the industry using it?
  • What is the analytical accuracy of the mixture?
  • Are the gases reactive, inert, toxic, oxidizing, flammable, or corrosive?

A few examples of the primary applications we provide specialty gas blending for include:

Medical: We provide the full spectrum of medical gases needed, including therapy gas, diagnostic gas, anesthetics, laser mixes, lung infusion mixes, and breathing air mixes.

Welding and Cutting: We provide all the mixtures needed to ensure the protection of the weld whether it is flux core arc, metal arc, tungsten arc, or plasma arc welding. We also have both oxy-fuel gases and plasma arc gases for your cutting applications.

Food and Beverage Preparation: We provide a complete line of Modified Atmospheric Packaging (MAP) for the preservation of fresh produce. We can provide the gas needed for sparging and brewing applications as well as for blanketing and purging after packaging for protection against oxidation.

Our partnership with PurityPlus™ certifies that we are selling the highest-grade product, and that these products will be delivered whenever you need them. This partnership aligns directly with RMA’s promise to deliver flawless dependability to each of our customers. Contact your local branch today in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, or Nebraska to discuss your gas uses, or to set up a usage evaluation. We look forward to serving you.

 

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Specialty gases available for a variety of industries and uses

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Dry Ice

Dry Ice

Dry Ice is simply Carbon Dioxide in its solid form. This clear product leaves no residue behind which offers a distinct advantage during the preservation process. It is used as a safe method of preserving frozen food and preserving biological samples.

Applications of dry ice are extraordinarily varied. Some examples of dry ice usage are: protecting ice sculptures from melting; making ice cream; solidifying oil spills; preventing insect infestations in grains and farm products; industrial blasting; and use in plumbing as a frozen plug for pipe repair.

 

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Solid Carbon Dioxide available for a variety of uses

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