page_title: Industrial gas
section_title: Early history of gases
hierarchical_section_title: Industrial gas / Early history of gases
caption_attribution_description: English: Brass carbide lamp by Justrite.
context_page_description: Industrial gases are the gaseous materials that are manufactured for use in industry. The principal gases provided are nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, hydrogen, helium and acetylene, although many other gases and mixtures are also available in gas cylinders. The industry producing these gases is also known as industrial gas, which is seen as also encompassing the supply of equipment and technology to produce and use the gases. Their production is a part of the wider chemical Industry.
  Industrial gases are used in a wide range of industries, which include oil and gas, petrochemicals, chemicals, power, mining, steelmaking, metals, environmental protection, medicine, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, food, water, fertilizers, nuclear power, electronics and aerospace. Industrial gas is sold to other industrial enterprises; typically comprising large orders to corporate industrial clients, covering a size range from building a process facility or pipeline down to cylinder gas supply.
  Some trade scale business is done, typically through tied local agents who are supplied wholesale.
context_section_description: The first gas from the natural environment used by humans was almost certainly air when it was discovered that blowing on or fanning a fire made it burn brighter. Humans also used the warm gases from a fire to smoke foods and steam from boiling water to cook foods.
  Carbon dioxide has been known from ancient times as the byproduct of fermentation, particularly for beverages, which was first documented dating from 7000–6600 B.C. in Jiahu, China. Natural gas was used by the Chinese in about 500 B.C. when they discovered the potential to transport gas seeping from the ground in crude pipelines of bamboo to where it was used to boil sea water. Sulfur dioxide was used by the Romans in winemaking as it had been discovered that burning candles made of sulfur  inside empty wine vessels would keep them fresh and prevent them gaining a vinegar smell.
  Early understanding consisted of empirical evidence and the protoscience of alchemy; however with the advent of scientific method  and the science of chemistry, these gases became positively identified and understood.
  The history of chemistry tells us that a number of gases were identified and either discovered or first made in relatively pure form during the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries by notable chemists in their laboratories. The timeline of attributed discovery for various gases are carbon dioxide (1754), hydrogen (1766), nitrogen (1772), nitrous oxide (1772) 
  , oxygen (1773) 
  , ammonia (1774),  chlorine (1774), methane (1776),  hydrogen sulfide (1777), carbon monoxide (1800), hydrogen chloride (1810), acetylene (1836), helium (1868)  fluorine (1886), argon (1894), krypton, neon and xenon (1898) 
   and radon (1899).
  Carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, ammonia, chlorine, sulfur dioxide and manufactured fuel gas were already being used during the 19th century, and mainly had uses in food, refrigeration, medicine, and for fuel and gas lighting. For example, carbonated water was being made from 1772 and commercially from 1783, chlorine was first used to bleach textiles in 1785  and nitrous oxide was first used for dentistry anaethesia in 1844. At this time gases were often generated for immediate use by chemical reactions. A notable example of a generator is Kipps apparatus which was invented in 1844  and could be used to generate gases such as hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, chlorine, acetylene and carbon dioxide by simple gas evolution reactions. Acetylene was manufactured commercially from 1893 and acetylene generators were used from about 1898 to produce gas for gas cooking and gas lighting, however electricity took over as more practical for lighting and once LPG was produced commercially from 1912, the use of acetylene for cooking declined.
  Once gases had been discovered and produced in modest quantities, the process of industrialisation spurred on innovation and invention of technology to produce larger quantities of these gases. Notable developments in the industrial production of gases include the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen (in 1869) and oxygen (from 1888), the Brin process for oxygen production which was invented in the 1884, the chloralkali process to produce chlorine in 1892 and the Haber Process to produce ammonia in 1908.
  The development of uses in refrigeration also enabled advances in air conditioning and the liquefaction of gases. Carbon dioxide was first liquefied in 1823. The first Vapor-compression refrigeration cycle using ether was invented by Jacob Perkins in 1834 and a similar cycle using ammonia was invented in 1873 and another with sulfur dioxide in 1876. Liquid oxygen and Liquid nitrogen were both first made in 1883; Liquid hydrogen was first made in 1898 and liquid helium in 1908. LPG was first made in 1910. A patent for LNG was filed in 1914 with the first commercial production in 1917.
  Although no one event marks the beginning of the industrial gas industry, many would take it to be the 1880s with the construction of the first high pressure gas cylinders. Initially cylinders were mostly used for carbon dioxid
caption: Acetylene flame carbide lamp
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