Did you know? Air Liquide is 119 years old!

Soon after it was founded in 1902, Air Liquide set its sights on the international market.



The company expanded into Japan in 1907, and around Europe with its arrival in Italy and Spain in 1909 for instance. It then established units in Canada in 1911, followed by the United States in 1916.



The reason for this development is simple: Gas, by its very nature, is difficult to transport and thus local production is required.

Jean Delorme, the then Chairman and CEO of Air Liquide, strongly believed in the market potential of cryogenics and decided to set up an advanced research hub dedicated to this technology near Grenoble, France, in 1962.



As a result, since the 1973 launch of the European Ariane launcher program in Brussels, Air Liquide has contributed to all iterations of the launcher — from Ariane 1 to Ariane 5.



The Group supplies the propulsion fluids—liquid oxygen and hydrogen—used for launches, and leverages its expertise in cryogenics.

All of them!  Let’s take a step back in time: In the 1980s, the electronics market emerged, and Japan took the reins as market leader at the time. So in 1987, Air Liquide unveiled its laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan.

This center specializes in supplying ultra-high purity gases to the semi-conductor industry.  These include carrier gases, mainly nitrogen, which allow for transporting specialty gases and keeping chip production tools inert, but also specialty gases used directly for manufacturing semi-conductors.



Since then, the Group has continually supported leaders in this sector, especially recently with its enScribe^TM range of advanced materials.