Linde is a global multinational chemical company and the world's largest industrial gas supplier by market share and revenue. Founded by German scientist and engineer Carl von Linde in 1879 in Wiesbaden, Germany, the company is now headquartered in Woking, United Kingdom, and registered in Ireland as Linde plc. Linde plc was formed in 2018 through the merger of Linde AG and Praxair, which was founded in 1907 in the United States as Linde Air Products Company.
The company's primary business is the manufacturing and distribution of atmospheric gases, including oxygen, nitrogen, argon, rare gases, and process gases, including carbon dioxide, helium, hydrogen, ammonia, electronic gases, specialty gases, and acetylene. Linde's products are used in the healthcare, petroleum refining, manufacturing, food, beverage carbonation, fiber-optics, steel making, aerospace, material handling equipment (MHE), chemicals, electronics and water treatment industries.
Linde is ranked 463rd on the Fortune Global 500 and 187th on the Forbes Global 2000.
Contents
Operations
The company has two principal business areas: gas (industrial gases and medical gases), and engineering, procurement, and construction.
Gases
In the industrial gas area, the company uses the brand names Linde, AGA, BOC, TIG, Mox-Linde Gases, Afrox, Sigas and PanGas. HiQ is used as an identifier for high purity and premium specialty gases across all of these business brand names.
In the medical gas area, the company uses the brand names Linde Gas Therapeutics, AGA Medical, INO Therapeutics, Linde Homecare, and Farmadomo.
Linde Gas supplies industrial gases, medical gases, specialty gases, refrigerants and other chemicals. Depending on the gas and the quantity required, these may be supplied in portable high-pressure gas cylinders, in liquefied form by road tanker, from on-site gas generators or in gaseous form via pipeline to large customers. This division has four operating segments, Western Europe, the Americas, Asia & Eastern Europe, and South Pacific & Africa. These segments are subdivided into eight Regional Business Units (RBUs). The Gases Division also includes the two Global Business Units (GBUs) – Healthcare (medical gases) and Tonnage (on-site) – and the two Business Areas (BAs) – Merchant & Packaged Gases (liquefied and cylinder gases) and Electronics (electronic gases).
The product range includes hydrogen, acetylene, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, shielding gases for welding applications, noble gases and specialty gases, oxygen, nitrogen, and argon, all of which are manufactured in Linde's air separation plants.
Linde Healthcare provides pharmaceutical and medical gas products and services for the healthcare industry such as oxygen therapy, aerosol therapy, anaesthesia, and gas for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, sleep apnoea and pain.
Linde Engineering
Linde Engineering designs and builds large-scale chemical plants for the production of industrial gases including oxygen, nitrogen, argon, hydrogen and carbon monoxide, as well as large plants associated with the processing of natural gas, LNG, Liquefied petroleum gas and the manufacture of olefins. The Engineering Division develops process plants in the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) business worldwide.
The group has more than 1,000 process engineering patents and 4,000 completed plant projects.
The product range includes:
Air separation plants
Ethylene Cracker Units
Liquefied natural gas and Natural-gas processing plants
Hydrogen and synthesis gas plants
Chemical plants
Adsorption and membrane plants
Cryogenics plants
Carbon capture and storage and carbon dioxide plants
Furnaces, Incineration and heaters
Plant components
Linde is also a member of the Hydrogen Council, a group of companies investing in hydrogen vehicles. The company expects hydrogen vehicles to compete with electric vehicles and has invested in wind powered plants that convert water to hydrogen.
History
On 21 June 1879, Carl von Linde founded the Gesellschaft für Linde's Eismaschinen Aktiengesellschaft to develop further his work in developing mechanical refrigeration systems for the brewing and food industries. Following success in this market, he moved on to developing lower temperature systems resulting in 1895 in a patent covering the liquefaction of air. Out of this work his company developed equipment for the separation of air and other gases. Linde's process was patented in 1902 and immediately exploited by the first large-scale air separation plant installed in Linde's works in Höllriegelskreuth, near Munich in 1903.
In 1906, Carl Von Linde decided to expand his oxygen extraction company overseas, targeting America, where no other companies had attempted industrial scale oxygen extraction. Along with Cecil Lightfoot, in 1907, he opened the Linde Air Products Factory, his first plant in America at Buffalo, New York.
In addition to plants for air separation, in 1906, Linde engineers started working with others on processes to separate the constituents of water gas. This work lead to the 1909 invention of the Linde–Frank–Caro process to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which were further key feedstocks for the emerging chemicals industry.
In addition to his interests in refrigeration, Carl von Linde had also partnered with Hugo Güldner and Georg Krauß and others in 1904 to form the Güldner Motoren-Gesellschaft mbH in Munich, which was moved to Aschaffenburg in 1906. Linde took full ownership of the company in 1929, and from this origin developed a business manufacturing first engines and tractors, and then from the 1950s onwards, a range of mechanical handling equipment such as fork lift trucks. Linde also acquired the Aktiengesellschaft für Industriegasverwertung (English: Corporation for Industry Gas Utilization), commonly referred to as the Heylandt Works.
Following World War I, Linde's U.S. assets were confiscated. They were incorporated into the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) as the Linde Air Products division in 1917. Eventually, in 1992, this part of Union Carbide was spun off as Union Carbide Industrial Gases Inc., and renamed Praxair. In 2018 this became part of Linde when Linde merged with Praxair.