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Two breakthroughs ensured that BOC made rapid progress after the turn of the 20th Century.In 1903, the oxyacetylene welding process was introduced to engineering and became a sure-fire success, leading to greater demand for oxygen. By 1906, BOC had abandoned its chemical technique for producing oxygen in favour of the liquefaction processes pioneered and patented by Carl von Linde, and the British scientist Dr William Hampson. |
The company changed its name to The British Oxygen Company in 1906, and the production process was further refined by combining the best features of the Linde process with a new process developed by Georges Claude..
After the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, BOC's oxygen had a vital part to play in the vast manufacturing effort, since munitions, tanks, vehicles and shipbuilding all relied on the new cutting and welding technology.
At this point another method for producing oxygen came to fruition. An electrolytic process had been studied by the company as far back as 1888 but rejected because of its high energy costs and lack of demand for its by-product, hydrogen. Now, with Lever Brothers building an electrolytic plant, BOC arranged to take the hydrogen by-product and compress it. |