Carl von Linde
Carl Paul Gottfried Linde, since 1897 Ritter von Linde ( born June 11, 1842 in Bern village, † November 16, 1934 in Munich) was a German engineer, inventor and founder of a now international group of Linde AG. Using its linden method, the development of the first refrigerators was possible.
Life and work
Linde was the third of nine children in the Lutheran parsonage Bern village. For professional reasons - his father took over the parish of St. Mang - the family moved into the rectory to Kempten (Allgäu ), where Carl matured after frequent visits to the Kempten cotton spinning mill, the desire to study engineering. After passing the Abitur examination at the Humanities College (now: Carl -von-Linde -Gymnasium ) in Kempten Carl Linde began in 1861 to study at the Polytechnic of Zurich, where Rudolf Clausius, Gustav Zeuner and Franz Reuleaux were his teachers. In 1864 he finished his studies without financial statements, as he was forced expelled after a student protest. Reuleaux gave him an apprenticeship in the cotton factory of Kottern, a suburb of Kempten, which he took up in the same year. He remained there but a short time before he moved to Munich to work as head of the design office at the locomotive factory Krauss.
In 1866 he married Helene Grimm: From the 53 years of marriage six children emerged. In 1868 he accepted a position at the Polytechnic School in Munich, the forerunner of today's Technical University of Munich, where he first - was an associate professor, 1872 then Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering - with only 26 years. At the Polytechnic Linde established the first laboratory machines of Germany, was in the trained and Rudolf Diesel.
1871 Linde published an essay on improved refrigeration process. Many breweries were interested in it, and soon Linde provided them with the new machines, where he worked constantly.
Linde created essential foundations of modern refrigeration. In 1871 he designed a methyl ether ( dimethyl ether ) operating refrigerating machine that he ( now MAN SE) was in the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg produce. The second, 1876 the following generation of chillers used ammonia. The principle of the cooling of the gas, which had previously performed mechanical work, two had in common.
A contest for a refrigeration system to crystallize paraffin was in 1873 for the high school teachers the incentive to build a refrigerator that allowed the fermentation at a constant temperature when brewing beer. Breweries throughout Europe, the first in 1877 Dreher, also the Mainz Actien Brewery, Spaten Munich, Heineken in the Netherlands, Carlsberg in Denmark, viewed promptly for the new refrigeration technology.
On June 21, 1879, inventor gave up his teaching position and called with two brewers and three other founders, the Society for Lindes Ice Machines AG to life (now Linde AG). In contrast to the other partners he brought into the company no capital, but its patents. After a relatively short time the company was a leader in refrigeration quality area in Europe, also favored by a mild winter of 1883 / 1884. Therefore, there was a shortage of natural ice, which was needed in the temperature-controlled fermentation with lager yeast. Existing reservations Brewers against the artificial ice melted away, cooling machines were suddenly in demand and Linde delivered immediately.
Cold storage for food and several ice factories let Linde gradually build even yourself. But his method on rinks in dairies and in the liquefaction of chlorine and carbon dioxide was required. The company prospered; In 1890, Linde withdrew from operations back to the Supervisory Board of his new company. In the years 1892-1910 he took his chair again.
On the basis of the work of James Prescott Joule, Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin of Largs ) and the introduction of counter-current process could Linde 1895 for the first time large quantities liquefy air ( Linde process ). Thus, he created the opportunities for physical examinations and cryogenic separation of air components by fractional distillation. 1901 was followed by the construction of a plant for the production of oxygen and (from 1903) nitrogen.
In the south of Munich, in Höllriegelskreuth, let Linde in 1903 to build a manufacturing facility, which is that of the Linde Group's largest site today.
Linde was a member of scientific and engineering associations, among other things, he was a member of the board of trustees of the Physikalisch -Technische Reich Institute and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and was chairman of the German Refrigeration Association ( DKV). In 1903 he was involved in the founding of the Deutsches Museum. He was honored in 1897 by Prince Regent Luitpold with the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown and levied under the Order Statutes in the personal nobility. Linde 1916 was the first winner of the Siemens -Ring.
In 1910, Linde withdrew as director of his now hugely successful corporation and handed it to his sons Frederick and Richard continue. The world economic crisis of 1929 returned the Linde AG a strong blow; the company rebounded, however, and the profits already started to rise again before Linde died in 1934 at the age of 92 years. Carl von Linde was buried in the old part of the forest cemetery in Munich in grave No. 139 -W -9b.
Linde process
The Linde process was developed by Carl von Linde technical method for the liquefaction of air. Intake air is compressed, the resulting heat is removed by water cooling. Then the air is relaxed again, it cools due to the Joule- Thomson effect. At a pressure gradient of 200 to 20 bar, cooling is carried out at about 45 Kelvin. This cooled air is cooled in a countercurrent heat exchanger before a descendant compressed air that precools the next a descendant air. The continuous repetition leads to the progressive lowering of the temperature, which eventually drops below its boiling point, the liquefaction of air result. By the same method may also be hydrogen and helium be liquefied, which gases have to be pre-cooled with liquid nitrogen.