Low temperature condensation is widely used in the world to extract helium from natural gas. Impurities such as hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, water, and even mercury from helium-containing gas sources must be purified before entering the cryogenic unit. Then crude helium with 60% helium content was prepared by secondary condensation of natural gas. The more difficult to liquefy hydrogen in natural gas is concentrated in crude helium with the enrichment of helium, which needs to be removed before refining. The cold source is generally provided by atmospheric liquid nitrogen, and the purity of helium gas above 99.99% can be obtained.

Adsorption method is based on the natural gas methane, ethane, helium, nitrogen, oxygen and other components on the surface of the solid adsorbent adsorption capacity of the difference to separate the helium. Due to the limitation of adsorption capacity of adsorbent, the adsorption method is generally suitable for crude helium refining with impurity content less than 10%. Pressure swing adsorption (PSA), which has been developed in recent years, belongs to this type of improvement.

The absorption method is to extract helium by washing, absorbing and removing the other components in natural gas with a boiling point higher than helium.

Diffusion method takes advantage of the high thermal diffusion property of helium gas, and the helium in natural gas can be concentrated and extracted by capillary