Metals
Providing oxygen, nitrogen and argon for a variety of metal applications.
Reduced costs & improved quality
The metals industry today is challenged to reduce production costs, improve product quality and productivity, and maximize efficiency by optimizing the use of critical resources. Producers must simultaneously strive to continually reduce the environmental impact of their operations and comply with stringent regulations.
As a partner over the long-term, we leverage our skills and innovative technologies to provide safe, reliable and competitive gas supply solutions that meet the diverse needs of the industry.
The industry requires oxygen, nitrogen, and argon for a number of applications, ranging from oxygen enrichment for blast furnaces to surface protection and degasification. Air Liquide supplies industrial gases in massive volumes via pipelines or on-site production units. If your operations require medium or small volumes of industrial gases, we can deliver them to your facility in bulk or in cylinders. As part of our gas offer, we can supply storage infrastructure and related services, such as monitoring and maintenance.
Steel making
Most of the steel production stages in the primary and secondary sectors use industrial gases in large quantities, delivered by pipeline, on-site gas generation or delivered by truck in liquid form.
Air Liquide also offers a wide range of technical solutions specifically designed for blast furnaces, arc furnaces, converters, transfer ladles and reheating furnaces
Non ferrous
All non-ferrous metal production sectors (aluminum, lead, copper, zinc, nickel, cobalt, gold and ore) use industrial gases all throughout the stages of ore concentration, in-situ leaching, concentrate processing and primary metal refining. Industrial gases are also used to treat effluents to help control the environmental impact.
Foundries
EGAL™ from Airgas is a patented inerting blanket process that helps mitigate oxidation that occurs on metal castings during the melt cycle. EGAL eliminates rework, saves energy and creates efficiencies throughout the melt cycle.
Metallurgical products
Primary metal processing operations provide products in the form suitable for production into final parts while preserving the qualities of the original metal. Gases are used to help preserve the intrinsic qualities of metallurgical products through metal shaping operations: rolling, wire drawing, drawing, hot forming. Our solutions cover all ranges of annealing and tempering of steels and non-ferrous metals—guaranteeing decarburization against oxidation.
The proposed solutions also contribute to compliance with target temperature profiles, in both the temperature rise and cooling steps.
The use of high-pressure nitrogen or argon is necessary to obtain quality metal powders by pressurized atomization of liquid metal.