used to produce the United States' first atom bombs from 1942 to 1948 was processed by Linde Air Products in
Tonawanda, New York. This company originally had been founded as U.S. branch of the German “Gesellschaft für Linde´s Eismaschinen Aktiengesellschaft” in 1907, but had been expropriated in 1917 and was integrated into
Union Carbide & Carbon Corporation.
The New York Times reported in 1981 that of radioactive caustic wastes from the
Manhattan Project was dumped into nearby shallow wells specifically chosen "to hide the source of the contamination". Active remediation of sites in Tonawanda was completed in 2013 and have been in a long-term surveillance and maintenance since 2017. 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 addition to plants for
air separation, in 1906, Linde engineers started working with others on processes to separate the constituents of
water gas. 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. In the years of
Nazi Germany, Linde AG benefited from the country's attempt to become
self-sufficient by refraining from imports of
synthetic fuel and
rubber. In 1935, general manager Friedrich Linde received the title of
Wehrwirtschaftsführer, which underlined the national importance of Linde AG and allowed the company to further benefit from the
German rearmament. In 2000, the company completed the acquisition of
AGA AB of
Sweden for $3.71 billion. In the early 2000,
Brazilian auction was invented as a new type of
auctions to trade gas by
electronic auctions for Linde plc in
Brazil. In 2004, the company sold its refrigeration division to
Carrier Corporation for €325 million. In September 2006, Linde acquired
BOC for €11.7 billion in cash. Linde's forklift business was rebranded as
KION Group and sold to
KKR and
Goldman Sachs for €4bn in January 2007. In March 2007, the
BOC Edwards semiconductor equipment business was sold to
private equity firm CCMP Capital for €685m. Also in March 2007, eight air separation units and related bulk gas business, with about 300 employees, were sold to
Airgas for $495 million in cash. In April 2007, the company sold the industrial gas business of BOC Gazy to
Air Products & Chemicals for €370 million or about $503 million. In 2008, the head office of Linde AG was relocated from its historic headquarters in Wiesbaden to the
Angerhof building in downtown Munich. In 2010, the company acquired over 95% of the shares of
Sri Lanka–based Ceylon Oxygen Ltd. In June 2011, PT Linde
Indonesia, a subsidiary of Linde, announced its plan to build an air separation plant worth Rp.1 trillion ($117.33 million) in
Cilegon,
Banten to supply industrial gas to PT
Krakatau Steel's steel plant. In May 2012, the company acquired the Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal and Spain homecare business of
Air Products & Chemicals for €590 million. In August 2012, the company acquired
Lincare Holdings, a healthcare gas provider in the US for US$4.6 billion to become the largest home care gas supplier in North America. In December 2012, the company acquired homecare company Calea France SAS. In February 2016, Lincare Holdings acquired American HomePatient, Inc. In December 2016, Linde Korea completed the acquisition of Air Liquide Korea's industrial merchant & electronics and liquid bulk air gases divisions, based in South Korea. In early June 2017, after almost a year of on-and-off negotiations, Linde and
Praxair, the successor to UCC's Linde Air Products division, agreed to merge. In July 2018, the company agreed to sell certain business in North and South American assets to
Messer Group and
CVC Capital Partners for $3.3 billion to gain regulator approval for the Praxair merger. On 31 October 2018, the merger was completed except finalising divestitures required by the respective antitrust authorities. On 1 March 2019 the company completed divestitures required by US antitrust authorities. On 28 February 2019,
Matheson acquired Linde HyCO, divested to comply with the regulatory terms of the Praxair merger. On 9 August 2019 Linde partnered with CarbonCure Technologies. On 29 August 2019, the company acquired a 10% stake in Hydrospider, a Swiss producer and supplier of hydrogen derived from renewable energy sources. In October 2019, the company invested £28 million in
ITM Power, a British manufacturer of
polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyzers for
hydrogen production via electro-chemical splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen. In January 2020, the company sold its LifeGas division. In April 2020,
Gasum acquired the company's LNG and biogas business in Sweden and Norway. In 2021 Linde and the Turkish construction company Renaissance Heavy Industries were awarded a contract to build a
Liquified Natural Gas terminal at Ust-Luga in Russia. Following the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, sanctions were introduced which restricted Linde completing the contract. Russia accordingly froze assets of Linde in Russia, who has an exposure of €1 billion in the country. In September 2022, Linde sold Gist Limited to
Marks & Spencer for £145 million. Gist, headquartered at
Chineham Business Park,
Basingstoke, offers
supply chain services including end-to-end management and customer fulfilment through transport and warehousing. Gist was acquired by Linde as part of its 2006 acquisition of BOC. File:Storage tanks by Linde group, Schiedam-8228.jpg|
Linde Gas Schiedam Storage Linde-Wasserstofftank.JPG|Tank for liquid hydrogen of Linde,
Museum Autovision,
Altlußheim TrailH2 DTMB Maerz 2008 (32).JPG|trailH2 Linde E20 Elektrostapler r.jpg|Linde E20 Linde (previously AGA) air separation plant in Washington, West Virginia..JPG|Linde air separation plant in
Washington, West Virginia == Financial data ==