Linde Gas opened a special gas producer in Prague for the quarter of production
The new specialty gas production plant, which the company is opening after three years of preparation and a year of construction work, is one of the most automated plants in the entire Linde multinational group. The company promises to optimize production costs and shorten the delivery time. The investment is part of changes in the special gas supply system in Europe.
The capacity of the new bottling plant will be 65,000 cylinders per year, the current was 9,000 cylinders. In addition to Czech customers, neighboring countries will also be supplied from the Prague plant, and Linde will export from Prague to almost all of Europe. Process gases for special applications and calibration gases will be mixed in the bottling plant.
“We supply calibration gases, for example, to car manufacturers for measuring emissions, including technical inspection stations. Pure gases and certified calibration mixtures are used, among others, by units of the Fire and Rescue Service or the police laboratory, ”says Petr Partsch, head of Linde Gas Czech Republic.
Technical gases include air gases (oxygen, nitrogen, argon) and, for example, hydrogen, acetylene or health oxide. Specialty gases are their highly pure variants (purity higher than 99,999 percent) or their mixtures. It is possible to produce up to five-component mixtures in the new bottling plant. Special gases include calibration gases, which are gas mixtures produced according to individual customer requirements.
Pure gases and calibration gases are used in many industries for input, inter-operational or output controls. Special gases are also used for accurate measurements, such as emission control or food and environmental testing.
Gases from the new plant can also be used to calibrate the instruments that large industrial companies need to measure exhaust emissions. “Typical applications are in laboratories, science and research,” adds Partsch.
In the adjoining, nine-year-old hall, Linde also produces medical gas, which it supplies to hospitals. Which normal production is around 160 pieces per day, during the biggest onslaught of the covid pandemic, the company filled 600 to 700 pieces of oxygen cylinders of various sizes. People from the office also got involved in filling the bottles. Oxygen and other gases are obtained from the air, but it is an energy-intensive process, the gas must be compressed and cooled several times.