1842-1934

German engineer who developed a process for converting large volumes of gas into liquid. He founded a factory that used this process to produce liquefied air. By 1895 he was able to separate oxygen from liquid air. Liquid gases soon became important to the manufacture of steel and to the refrigeration industry. Earlier in his career, Linde invented refrigerators that used either methyl ether or ammonia as coolants. He used these machines to perform calculations involving the efficiency of heat transfer.