Helium is a colorless, odorless noble gas. It is shipped as a compressed gas.
Helium is the smallest and lightest of the noble gases. It is so light that it can escape even escape the Earth’s atmosphere. It is produced deep underground through the radioactive decay of uranium and its daughter products. And it is captured by the same geologic formations that capture natural gas. Most helium is produced by extracting it from natural gas.
Helium is used in the welding industry as an inert shielding gas for arc welding. Taking advantage of it’s very low boing point, only a few degrees above absolute zero, it is used for cryogenics cooling for very cold storage of samples and cooling of magnets in MRI machines. This can be in open-loop systems where evaporating helium is replaced, or closed loop helium refrigerators. Helium, in mixtures with neon and argon is used in electronic tubes and neon signs.
It is lighter than air and nonflammable so it is good to use in blimps and balloons. Helium is used in large balloons for upper atmosphere and cosmic ray studies and in small balloons by weather forecasters to carry meteorological instruments. And, it is used in even smaller balloon to be festive.
Helium is used for aerospace applications including pressure testing and leak testing propellant tanks. With the small atomic size and inertness, helium will slip through gaps other gasses will not. And it is used to pressurize rocket fuels to force them into rocket engines.
Helium is used in laboratories for leak detection, in dry boxes needing an inert atmosphere, as a temperature standard, and as a carrier in gas chromatography. A mixture of helium and oxygen is used as a breathing gas for deep divers who work under high pressures.
Helium is used in the production of semiconductors.