Early years Born in ,
Bavaria as the son of a German-born minister and a Swedish mother, he was expected to follow in his father's footsteps but took another direction entirely. Von Linde's family moved to
Munich in 1854, and eight years later he started a course in engineering at the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, where his teachers included
Rudolf Clausius,
Gustav Zeuner and
Franz Reuleaux. In 1864, he was expelled before graduating for participating in a student protest, but Reuleaux found him a position as an apprentice at the Kottern cotton-spinning plant in
Kempten. Linde stayed only a short time before moving first to
Borsig in
Berlin and then to the new
Krauss locomotive factory in
Munich, where he worked as head of the technical department. Von Linde married Helene Grimm in September 1866; their marriage lasted 53 years and they had six children. In 1868 Linde learned of a new university opening in Munich (the
Technische Hochschule) and immediately applied for a job as a lecturer; he was accepted—at the age of 26—for the position. He became a full professor of mechanical engineering in 1872, and set up an engineering lab where students such as
Rudolf Diesel studied.
Middle years In 1870 and 1871, Linde published articles in the
Bavarian Industry and Trade Journal describing his research findings in the area of
refrigeration. Linde's first refrigeration plants were commercially successful, and development began to take up increasing amounts of his time. In 1879, he gave up his professorship and founded the
Gesellschaft für Lindes Eismaschinen Aktiengesellschaft ("Linde's Ice Machine Company"), now
Linde plc, in
Wiesbaden, Germany. After a slow start in a difficult German economy, business picked up quickly in the 1880s. The efficient new refrigeration technology offered big benefits to the breweries, and by 1890 Linde had sold 747 machines. In addition to the breweries, other uses for the new technology were found in slaughterhouses and cold storage facilities all over Europe. In 1888, Linde moved back to Munich where he took up his professorship once more but was soon back at work developing new refrigeration cycles. In 1892, an order from the
Guinness brewery in
Dublin for a
carbon dioxide liquefaction plant drove Linde's research into the area of low-temperature refrigeration, and in 1894 he started work on a process for the
liquefaction of air. In 1895, Linde first achieved success, and filed for
patent protection of his process (not approved in the US until 1903). In 1901, Linde began work on a technique to obtain pure
oxygen and
nitrogen based on the
fractional distillation of liquefied air. By 1910, coworkers including Carl's son Friedrich had developed the
Linde double-column process, variants of which are still in common use today. After a decade, Linde withdrew from managerial activities to refocus on research, and in 1895 he succeeded in liquefying air by first compressing it and then letting it expand rapidly, thereby cooling it. He then obtained oxygen and nitrogen from the liquid air by slow warming. In the early days of oxygen production, the biggest use by far for the gas was the
oxyacetylene torch, invented in
France in 1903, which revolutionized metal cutting and
welding in the construction of ships,
skyscrapers, and other iron and steel structures. In 1897, Linde was appointed to the
Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown and ennobled in accordance with its statutes. In addition to Linde's technical and engineering abilities, he was a successful entrepreneur. He formed many successful partnerships in Germany and internationally, working effectively to exploit the value of his patents and knowledge through licensing arrangements. In 1906, Linde negotiated a stake in Brin's Oxygen Company, renamed
The BOC Group. in exchange for rights to Linde's patents in the UK and other countries, and held a board position until 1914. Linde also formed the Linde Air Products Company in the USA in 1907, a company that passed through US Government control to
Union Carbide in the 1940s and on to form
Praxair. In 2005
Linde, plc bought the BOC Group, and in 2019
Linde plc merged with Praxair, thus combining all three companies founded by Linde.
Later years and death From around 1910, Linde started transferring responsibility for the company's operation to his sons Friedrich and Richard and to his
son-in-law Rudolf Wucherer. He continued with supervisory board and advisory duties until his death. Carl von Linde died in Munich in November 1934 at the age of 92. ==Key inventions==