How neon is made

One pound of the gas takes 88,000 pounds of a rare mix drawn from a huge air plant. Air is its only source.

stations: 6
things upstream: 2
raw source: 1
steps from the ground: 2

The short version

All of it comes out of the atmosphere, which holds just 18.2 parts per million. Air separation plants liquefy air for oxygen and nitrogen, and this gas stays behind in the small fraction that refuses to condense. A side column concentrates it, then charcoal removes helium and added oxygen burns off hydrogen, before it is bottled for lasers, chip plants and glowing signs.

Filter and compress air

Air is cleaned of dust and compressed. Water condenses out between stages, and a molecular sieve bed catches the remaining water vapor and carbon dioxide, which would freeze and plug the cold equipment.

Goes in
Air
Liquefy in the cold box

Inside an insulated enclosure, heat exchangers and expansion turbines cool the air until most of it turns liquid. This gas boils at −246 °C, so it stays as vapor while nitrogen condenses at −195.8 °C.
Tap the top condenser

A gas mix of mainly nitrogen, neon, helium and hydrogen is withdrawn from the main condenser at the top of the high-pressure column. It is a tiny stream from a very large plant.
Rectify in a side column

The mix enters the bottom of a separate side column, where rectification concentrates the rare gas. What comes out is a crude stream still carrying helium and hydrogen.
Remove helium and hydrogen

Contact with activated charcoal separates out the helium. Added oxygen reacts with the hydrogen to form water, which is then condensed away.

Goes in
Oxygen gas
Bottle the pure gas

Finished gas is compressed into cylinders for buyers such as sign makers and laser makers. Chip makers buy it too, and some changed suppliers after a price spike of about 600% in 2014.

End of the lineNeon Next it goes into neon sign.

Worth repeating

Before 2022, about 70% of the world's neon was produced in Ukraine, as a by-product of steel production in Russia.
Neon tubes failed as home lighting because homeowners objected to the color, and they found their market in advertising signs from 1912.
Earth's atmosphere holds 1 part neon in 55,000 by volume.