THE COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION OF 

 OXYGEN 1 



BY ALFEED GRADENWITZ, PH. D. 



THE European oxygen industry is passing through a 

 period of most remarkable development. Oxygen factories 

 are springing up everywhere to produce this valuable gas, 

 which especially in .metallurgy is now utilized for many 

 purposes. This fact is due in a large part to the great im- 

 provements that have taken place during the last few 

 years in the methods of liquefying air and separating it 

 into its constituents, oxygen and nitrogen. The process 

 due to Professor Linde, the celebrated scientist of Munich, 

 Bavaria which is based on the expansion of compressed 

 air and the production of internal work during expansion 

 through a constricted orifice is fairly well known in this 

 country. In order to obtain oxygen, Professor Linde lique- 

 fies completely some atmospheric air, so as to produce a 

 liquid containing twenty-one per cent, of oxygen, which is 

 then caused to flow down a rectifying column similar to 

 those used in distilling alcohol or gasoline. In this column 

 the liquid meets with oxygen vapors resulting from the 

 liquid oxygen, which is vaporized by the latent heat of the 

 air in course of liquefaction ; in this way a pure commercial 

 oxygen (ninety-six to ninety-eight per cent.) is eventually 

 obtained, while the nitrogen produced at the same time 

 still contains at least seven per cent, of oxygen, that is, 

 one third of the oxygen of air. 



Although giving better results, Claude's process is not 

 perhaps so well known outside of the Continent because of 

 its more recent origin. It is worked in France by L'Air 



Published in Scientific American Supplement, April 10, 1909. 

 6 81 



