Automotive

Stainless steels, carbon steels and non-ferrous materials are annealed to trigger the relaxation of internal stresses and give a softer product. Our ALNAT atmosphere solutions for annealing are mainly based on mixtures of nitrogen, hydrogen and hydrocarbon or nitrogen and cracked methanol. Benefits include safety, reliability, low-maintenance operation and low capital costs.

Gases:

• Nitrogen
• Hydrogen

Brands:

Our ALNAT solutions include bulk gas supply, related gas handling equipment, and a range of services related to the generation, use and control of atmospheres in industrial heat processing furnaces.

• ALNAT™

We supply industrial gases for clean melting processes and casting applications. Air Liquide’s patented Expanding Gas Air Liquide (EGAL) process uses liquid cryogenics, i.e. argon or nitrogen, to reduce interactions between molten metal and atmospheric gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and water. This SPAL technology allows manufacturers to produce castings with fewer defects, enhanced mechanical properties and lower rejects.

Air Liquide offers SPAL, Air Liquide’s technology family of inert blanketing processes. These patented processes include EGAL, Surface Backfilling Air Liquide (SBAL) and Vapor Ring Air Liquide (VRAL).

Gases:

• Argon
• Nitrogen

During carburizing (carbonitriding) operations, carbon and nitrogen is brought to the surface of steel components and diffused to produce a hard martensitic surface layer after quenching. Traditionally, the carbon comes from a hydrocarbon, natural gas or propane, partly oxidized in an endogas generator to produce a carbon/hydrogen atmosphere.

For nitriding, the nitrogen agent comes from ammonia cracking at the surface. Nitrogen accelerates the diffusion of carbon into the treated parts. The ALNAT solution offers you an active and reproducible heat treatment under nitrogen and methanol. Either in a batch or in a continuous furnace, the methanol is cracked and represents the carbon agent, which is sprayed with nitrogen in the hot zone of the furnace, around 900°C for carburizing and 880°C for carbonitriding.

Gases

• Nitrogen

Services

Our solutions include bulk gas supply, related gas handling equipment, and a range of services related to the generation, use and control of atmospheres in industrial heat processing furnaces.

Brands

• ALNAT^TM

The hardening operation involves heating components above their phase transformation temperature and then quenching them in oil or salt baths, or in a specific gas quenching cell. This treatment results in a hard and tough martensitic or bainitic structure inside the components. Such operations can be carried out in a wide range of continuous or batch furnaces.

Gases

• Nitrogen

Services

Our solutions include bulk gas supply, related gas handling equipment, and a range of services related to the generation, use and control of atmospheres in industrial heat processing furnaces.

Tungsten inert gas welding or GTAW-gas tungsten arc welding is a process used when a very high welding quality is required for pressure vessels, piping, or food containers. An additional filler metal, often a wire rod, may be used either manually or in an automatic process through a separate wire feeder. Researchers at Air Liquide have studied this process to learn more about it and to propose the most suitable shielding gases like ARCAL.

Gases

• ARCAL™ gases
• Argon 
• EXELTOP™

Equipment

Air Liquide supplies a wide range of gas handling equipment designed to safely deliver gas to your application such as Pressure regulators and Manifolds

Services

As part of our gas supply offers, Air Liquide will conduct a cost analysis productivity (CAP) diagnosis to help you implement the most efficient solution for your operations.

Brands

Our ARCAL brand offers a full range of high-quality, ready-to-use gas solutions for welding, shielding and cutting applications to help you boost the efficiency and overall productivity of your operations.

• ARCAL™

Plasma welding, developed from the TIG welding process, features deep penetration with arc constriction and high energy density. Plasma welding is widely used in automatic installations for the construction of vessels or containers in stainless steel, and in the pipe welding industry for high-quality pressure piping and vessels. Thicknesses of up to 10 mm can be welded in a butt weld configuration with a combined plasma-TIG installation. 

Gases

• Argon
• Hydrogen
• Nitrogen

Equipment

Air Liquide supplies a wide range of gas handling equipment designed to safely deliver gas to your application.

Services

As part of our gas supply offers, Air Liquide will conduct a cost analysis productivity (CAP) diagnosis to help you implement the most efficient solution for your operations.

Stainless steels, carbon steels and non-ferrous materials are annealed to trigger the relaxation of internal stresses and give a softer product. Our ALNAT atmosphere solutions for annealing are mainly based on mixtures of nitrogen, hydrogen and hydrocarbon or nitrogen and cracked methanol. Benefits include improved safety, reliability low-maintenance operation and low capital cost.

Gases

• Nitrogen
• Hydrogen

Brands

Our ALNAT solutions include bulk gas supply, related gas handling equipment, and a range of services related to the generation, use and control of atmospheres in industrial heat processing furnaces.

• ALNAT™

Sintered mechanical components are commonly produced in continuous furnaces. Sintering operations are carried out in several strongly interconnected steps. For each step, a specific atmosphere composition must be implemented in order to make the process succeed:

• Step 1: An oxidizing atmosphere increases lubricant removal
• Step 2: An active reducing non-decarburizing atmosphere is generated in the hot zone for a good sintering operation
• Step 3: A protective reducing atmosphere in the cooling zone is generated to prevent oxidation and to obtain a bright surface aspect

Air Liquide has developed the capability to master the atmosphere composition in each zone through a zoning technology. The atmosphere in each zone can be adjusted to meet the requirements of the different components to be treated. Air Liquide is able to supply complete installation to deliver high purity nitrogen, hydrogen or hydrocarbon mixture with flow control panel and safety monitoring.

Gases

• Nitrogen
• Hydrogen

Brands

Our ALNAT solutions for heat treatment applications include bulk gas supply, related gas handling equipment, and a range of services related to the generation, use and control of atmospheres in industrial heat processing furnaces.

• ALNAT™

Cryo-grinding, or freeze-grinding, involves cooling a material to low or very low temperatures with a cryogenic fluid – typically liquid nitrogen or liquid carbon dioxide – in order to produce particles with a narrow size distribution. Cryogenic technology makes it possible to process soft or heat-sensitive products more efficiently without the risk of degradation.

In addition, cryo-grinding can increase productivity and lower power costs. By embrittling the material, fine powder can be obtained easily and with a minimum expenditure of energy. In general, this technique allows greater amounts of substance to be treated, however, overall quantities usually remain relatively small, around several kilograms per hour.

Gases

• Nitrogen
• Carbon Dioxide

Metal Active Gas (MAG) welding is highly flexible and adaptive, and is used when you wish to obtain high productivity and high quality results. This process is used for manual, semi-automatic welding and automated/robotic installations on low-alloy carbon steels and high-alloy stainless steels.

Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding mixes are mainly used for sensitive stainless steels and aluminum or copper-alloy welding.

Gases

• ARCAL™ Gases
• Argon
• Carbon Dioxide
• Oxygen
• Microbulk

Equipment

Air Liquide supplies a wide range of gas handling equipment designed to safely deliver gas to your application.

Services

As part of our gas supply offers, Air Liquide will conduct a cost analysis productivity (CAP) diagnosis to help you implement the most efficient solution for your operations. We also provide customer gas utilisation audits, support and advise on welding documents and processes through the Unlocking Hidden Costs of Welding Programme.

Brands

Our ARCAL™ brand offers a full range of high-quality, ready-to-use gas solutions for welding, shielding and cutting applications to help you boost the efficiency and overall productivity of your operations.

• ARCAL™

Brazing processes can be manual or automatic. They are used for heat exchangers in air conditioning, taps, sanitary equipment and compressor parts. Fuel gases include acetylene and oxygen gas mixtures.

Gases

• Oxygen
• Acetylene

Gas quenching is an environmentally friendly alternative to oil or salt bath quenching applications. Associated with low-pressure processes such as carburizing, nitriding, annealing and others, gas quenching offers better control of distortion and limits post operations such as rectification. Primarily developed for high performance materials, gas quenching can be performed with nitrogen, argon, hydrogen or helium.

Pure or gas mixtures may be used depending on the material specifications. More recently, the development of vacuum carburizing applications in the automotive industry has required high-pressure gas quenching furnaces with pressure up to 20 bars. Air Liquide has built expertise in the development of dedicated solutions.

Gases

• Argon
• Helium
• Hydrogen
• Nitrogen

Brands

Air Liquide has developed ALNAT HP, a high-pressure delivery solution that does not require a gas compressor and ensures a higher level of availability for your furnace.

For laser cutting, a laser beam is focused on the base metal, and a cutting jet ejects molten metal. This process is used mainly on thin metals requiring high precision and high productivity. Air Liquide provides optimized and innovative gas installations and gas equipment to meet your flowrate and pressure needs for carbon dioxide lasing gas.

Gases

• LASAL™ Gases
• Nitrogen
• Oxygen

Brands

Our LASAL brand gases and equipment were developed by industry experts to optimize your laser processing operations.

• LASAL™

The plasma coating process is used in industries that require very high quality and reliability.

Gases

• Argon
• Hydrogen

The laser beam produced by a carbon dioxide or a solid state YAG cavity is used for high-penetration, high-speed welding processes where mainstream processes cannot deliver the required productivity.

Gases

• Argon
• Helium

Brands

Our LASAL™ brand gases and equipment were developed by industry experts to optimize your laser processing operations.

• LASAL™

The additive manufacturing process (3D printing) with metals makes it possible to build large scale works in real time. Air Liquide supplies premium welding and shielding gases for additive manufacturing projects.

Gases

• Nitrogen
• Argon

Flame Spraying is for applications involving hardfacing pieces as molds and using manual powder guns with oxy-acetylene flame processes.

Gases

• Oxygen
• Acetylene 

Metal Active Gas (MAG) welding is highly flexible and adaptive, and used when you wish to obtain high productivity and high quality results. This process is used for manual (semi-automatic) welding or automated/robotized installations on low-alloy carbon steels, high-alloy stainless steels or non-ferrous alloys such as aluminum or copper.

Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding mixes are mainly used for sensitive stainless steels and aluminum or copper-alloy welding.

Gases

• ARCAL™ Gases
• Argon

Brands

Our ARCAL™ brand offers a full range of high-quality, ready-to-use gas solutions for welding, shielding and cutting applications to help you boost the efficiency and overall productivity of your operations.

Brazing processes can be manual or automatic. They are used for heat exchangers in air conditioning, taps, sanitary equipment and compressor parts. Fuel gases include acetylene gas mixtures.

Gases

• Acetylene

Gases

• Oxygen
• Acetylene

Our solution for flame cutting includes an oxy-fuel flame and straight oxygen to form a cutting jet. Mainly used in automatic operations for separating metals of more than 15 mm thickness, this process is efficient on carbon steels and sometimes stainless steels with iron powder over 60 mm thick. The high flexibility of this process combined with its excellent cutting performance makes Air Liquide gases ideal for both manual and automatic flame cutting operations for use in metal fabrication, shipyards, boilers, scrapping and installations.

Gases

• Acetylene
• Oxygen