Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. is a U.S.-based international

corporation A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...

whose principal business is selling

gases Gas is a state of matter that has neither a fixed volume nor a fixed shape and is a compressible fluid. A ''pure gas'' is made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon) or molecules of either a single type of atom ( elements such ...

and

chemicals A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...

for industrial use. Air Products is headquartered in

Trexlertown, Pennsylvania Trexlertown is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Upper Macungie Township in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,382. It is part of the Lehigh Valley, which had a population of ...

, in the

Lehigh Valley The Lehigh Valley () is a geography, geographic and urban area, metropolitan region formed by the Lehigh River in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh and Northampton County, Pennsylvania, Northampton counties in eastern Pennsylvania. It is a co ...

region of eastern

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. As of 2024, Air Products is the fifth-largest employer in the Lehigh Valley.

History

20th century

Air Products was founded in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

in 1940 by Leonard Parker Pool with the objective of establishing on-site production and sales of various forms of

industrial gas Industrial gases are the gaseous materials that are Manufacturing, manufactured for use in Industrial sector, industry. The principal gases provided are nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, hydrogen, helium and acetylene, although many other ...

. The following year, in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II, and Air Products began manufacturing mobile generators for the production of oxygen used in high elevation military flights and necessary to meet the needs of the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 ...

and allied air forces."History"
Air Products official website In 1944, the company relocated its headquarters from Detroit to

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

, where it expanded its oxygen production manufacturing capacity to meet the needs of the U.S. military and its

allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...

in their war against

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and the

Axis powers The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, was the military coalition which initiated World War II and fought against the Allies of World War II, Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Ge ...

. Following the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the company relocated its headquarters and operations to

Emmaus, Pennsylvania Emmaus ( ) is a borough in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, it had a population of 11,652. Emmaus is located in the Lehigh Valley, the third-largest metropolitan area in Pennsylvania and 68th-largest metrop ...

in the manufacturing-intensive

region of eastern

. In the late 1950s, it completed the development of its current corporate headquarters in neighboring Trexlertown. Air Products serves customers in technology, energy, healthcare, food, and industrial markets worldwide with atmospheric industrial gases, including oxygen,

nitrogen Nitrogen is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a Nonmetal (chemistry), nonmetal and the lightest member of pnictogen, group 15 of the periodic table, often called the Pnictogen, pnictogens. ...

argon Argon is a chemical element; it has symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of the periodic table and is a noble gas. Argon is the third most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere, at 0.934% (9340 ppmv). It is more than twice as abu ...

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

, and

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

, process and specialty gases, performance materials, and chemical intermediates. Air Products produces refinery hydrogen,

liquified natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

technologies and equipment,

epoxy Epoxy is the family of basic components or Curing (chemistry), cured end products of epoxy Resin, resins. Epoxy resins, also known as polyepoxides, are a class of reactive prepolymers and polymers which contain epoxide groups. The epoxide fun ...

additives,

gas cabinet A gas cabinet is a metallic enclosure which is used to provide local exhaust ventilation system for virtually all of the gases used or generated in the semiconductor, solar, MEMS, NANO, solar PV, manufacturing and other advanced technologies. T ...

s, advanced coatings, and

adhesives Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation. The use of adhesives offers certain advantage ...

21st century

In 2001, Air Products Received an Award of Merit from the

WateReuse Water reclamation is the process of converting municipal wastewater or sewage and industrial wastewater into water that can be reused for a variety of purposes. It is also called wastewater reuse, water reuse or water recycling. There are many ty ...

Association for Outstanding Water Conservation Efforts for conserving of drinking water annually by converting to recycled water for the cooling process at its

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Clare of Assisi, Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities and towns i ...

manufacturing facility. The award was presented during the 25th Annual WateReuse Symposium. WRA recognizes projects that have advanced the acceptance of water reuse through education, sound science, and technology using reclamation,

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the propert ...

, reuse, or

desalination Desalination is a process that removes mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination is the removal of salts and minerals from a substance. One example is Soil salinity control, soil desalination. This is important for agric ...

for the benefit of the public and the environment. Air Products provided the liquid hydrogen and

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen, sometimes abbreviated as LOX or LOXygen, is a clear cyan liquid form of dioxygen . It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which is ongoing. Physical ...

fuel for the

Space Shuttle external tank The Space Shuttle external tank (ET) was the component of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle that contained the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. During lift-off and ascent it supplied the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the ...

. Air Products has had a working relationship with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

for five decades, supplying the

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen () is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecule, molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point (thermodynamics), critical point of 33 Kelvins, ...

used for every

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

launch and the Mercury and

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

missions. Air Products is included on the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index as one of the best performing sustainable companies for the period of 2008 to 2011. In January 2004, Air Products (NYSE: APD) was named a Maplecroft Climate Innovation Indexes (CIIs) Leader, the 17th largest U.S.-based company that has undergone evaluation of its climate-related innovation and carbon management programs. Air Products is currently working on several preeminent

carbon capture and storage Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a process by which carbon dioxide (CO2) from industrial installations is separated before it is released into the atmosphere, then transported to a long-term storage location.IPCC, 2021Annex VII: Glossary at ...

demonstration projects around the world. In 2010, Air Products was awarded the Rushlight Hydrogen and Fuel Cells industry award for the Series 10 hydrogen fuelling station, which celebrates the leading environmental technologies and innovations by organizations throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland by promoting development in hydrogen and fuel cells and enabling further development and funding to be granted toward reducing carbon emissions. In March 2010, ''Corporate Responsibility'' magazine named Air Products to its 100 Best Corporate Citizens List. In 2013, Air Products' high purity built-in purifier argon was used to determine a more accurate value for the

Boltzmann constant The Boltzmann constant ( or ) is the proportionality factor that relates the average relative thermal energy of particles in a ideal gas, gas with the thermodynamic temperature of the gas. It occurs in the definitions of the kelvin (K) and the ...

. In September 2015, Air Products announced its intent to spin off its Materials Technologies business. This new stand alone company was named Versum Materials. The spinoff was completed on October 3, 2016. Versum was later acquired by pharmaceutical company Merck. In January 2017, Air Products completed the sale of its Performance Materials division to

Evonik , products = Chemicals , revenue = {{Decrease €15.2 billion (2024){{cite web , url= https://www.evonik.com/en/investor-relations/Reporting.html#tabs-b118b10b7a-item-2d4ab0c2ad-tab , title=Evonik Financial Report 2024 , publisher=Evonik Industri ...

, leaving the company focused on its industrial gases business. Air Products initially refused to cease operations in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

in response to the

2022 invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

and the international sanctions subsequently levied against Russia. However, according to

Yale School of Management The Yale School of Management (also known as Yale SOM) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. The school awards the Master of Business Admi ...

, the company reversed its position and has since divested its interests in Russia.

CEOs

# Leonard Pool: 1940-1973 # Ed Donley: 1973-1986 # Dexter Baker: 1986-1992 # Hap Wagner: 1992-2000 # JP Jones: 2000-2008 # John McGlade: 2008 -2014 # Seifi Ghasemi: 2014 - 2025 # Eduardo Menezes: 2025 -

References

External links

* {{Authority control, state=expanded 1940 establishments in Michigan Chemical companies established in 1940 American companies established in 1940 Chemical companies of the United States Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Companies in the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Companies based in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Emmaus, Pennsylvania Industrial gas companies Manufacturing companies based in Pennsylvania